


Many a Quaint and Curious Volume of Forgotten Lore

by goodoldfashioned



Category: RedLetterMedia RPF
Genre: Apples, Dom/sub Undertones, Domestication, Halloween, M/M, Paranoia, Paranormal Investigators, Relationship Negotiation, Secrets, Spooky, Subspace, Suspicions, Weirdness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-17
Updated: 2019-10-17
Packaged: 2020-12-22 09:53:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 32,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21074288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goodoldfashioned/pseuds/goodoldfashioned
Summary: When Jay refuses to move in with Mike, local paranormal investigator Rich suggests this may mean Jay is secretly a demonic creature who feeds at night.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Halloween!! This was fun to write so it got super long, happens literally every time.
> 
> This is about the Half in the Baaaaaag characters and their world only. 
> 
> Also: the title is a quote from [The Raven!](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/48860/the-raven)
> 
> **

Mike wasn’t proud of how excited he got when Jay asked him to do mundane boyfriend-ish things like helping him decorate his place for Halloween, but he couldn’t deny that he loved it. Even getting things from high shelves when Jay couldn’t reach them got him off. He was a weirdo. He’d accepted it. 

He’d accepted a lot of weird shit about Jay over the years, too. Jay was kind of the opposite of Mike in terms of what meant the most to him, or didn’t. He liked order and neatness, traditions, plans. He was meticulous to a comical degree and had a fetish for measuring things-- literally, they’d done a role play thing where he measured Mike’s dick with the ruler from his tool box like a hundred times. They were very different people in general, but they liked two things the same amount: gleefully bad movies and fucked-up sex. They were so perfectly matched in both respects that they’d basically been together since their twenties, though neither of them would have admitted it back then and sometimes Mike wondered if Jay would even admit it outright now. 

He was afraid to ask, which irritated him, because few things scared him. 

Being a little scared of Jay was part of why Mike was so aroused by almost everything Jay did, but he was forty years old and it was getting ridiculous that he wasn’t sure how to answer his sister when she nagged him about being ‘single’ and unsubtly tried to fix him up with her garbage friends. The invitation to help Jay decorate for Halloween seemed like as good an occasion as any to press Jay about maybe acting more like a real couple now that they were practically elderly. Halloween was sacred to Jay, and the decorations that he slaved over for weeks ahead of the annual party he would eventually host were ritualistic in their importance to him, so finally being asked to help was significant, Mike decided. 

He stopped off at Dunkin Donuts for some Halloween-themed ones on the way to Jay’s place, though bringing him junk food as a love-offering was a somewhat risky move. Jay had some kind of split personality disorder when it came to whether he would give Mike ravenous doe eyes and pig out with him or sneer and remind him about his cholesterol levels. Mike never knew which one he was going to get when he showed up with treats.

He let himself into Jay’s place with the key that Jay had given him years ago, thinking for the thousandth or so time that it was a stupid waste of money for them to keep separate apartments. He decided that the practical, money-saving angle would be how he’d bring it up this time, and that he’d segue into the whole ‘we’re a couple, right?’ discussion from there. 

Jay was seated on the floor in his living room, surrounded by skeletons.

“Holy shit,” Mike said, stopping in his tracks and boggling at the sheer number of them. 

“Can you guess this year’s party theme?” Jay asked, beaming like a kid in the middle of a pile of toys, which wasn’t far from the truth. 

“Hmm,” Mike said, squinting in pretend consideration. “Star Trek?”

“It’s skeletons, Mike.”

“Ohhh, well. Maybe your approach is too subtle.”

There were skeletons of every size laid out all over the room, most of them white plastic, a few of them purple and green. At least one of them looked alarmingly realistic, seated on Jay’s couch and peering at Mike with a grim smile.

“I brought you donuts,” Mike said, lifting the bag.

“Ugh,” Jay said, wrinkling his nose. “I’ve been eating candy corn all afternoon. I don’t know if I can take any more sugar.”

“They’ve got orange frosting and and little candy bats on them, Jay.”

“Oh, well, in that case.”

Jay made some coffee to have with the donuts. Mike didn’t really like coffee and ate his donut without waiting for it to finish brewing, listening to Jay babble like a dork about how he wanted to have theme rooms where the skeletons were dressed in funny outfits and other rooms where they were lit and positioned so they were legitimately spooky. Mike made less teasing comments than he normally would, sweating under his shirt and waiting for an opening to bring up the whole living together thing.

He wondered if he should seduce Jay first. Jay was often a little punch drunk and sweet after he got fucked nice and hard, when he felt especially indebted to Mike for the use of the dick he loved to measure.

“I ordered a new smoke machine,” Jay said. “Professional grade.” 

“Jesus,” Mike said. “Sounds expensive.” 

Jay shrugged. “I’ll use it every year for the party. It’s high quality. People are gonna freak out. It’s gonna look like a haunted 80’s prom in here.”

“That’s not a bad theme.”

“That’s the sub-theme. The skeletons are the dead kids who are doomed to be at this hellish prom forever.”

“Ah. I see.”

Jay narrowed his eyes at Mike and blew through the steam that was wafting from his coffee mug.

“You’re not making fun of me for these ideas,” he said. “So you either want something or you’re about to give me bad news.” 

“Jay, don’t be so cynical. Maybe I just _love_ your skeleton prom idea.” 

Mike couldn’t even say so without snorting derisively. Jay shook his head.

“Yeah, I can tell. What’s up, seriously?”

“Umm, well. I was just thinking, you know, with you buying fancy smoke machines and everything, like. We should really consolidate our finances.”

He blurted that last part and felt the color rising high on his cheeks in a way that Jay would definitely notice.

“Huh?” Jay said. He sipped from his coffee and didn’t look alarmed yet, at least.

“You know, just, you could buy double the smoke machines if you had some help with the rent. Like, say, from a roommate. Or whatever I am. Me.”

Jay considered this in silence for a horrible moment, then frowned.

“I only need one smoke machine,” he said. 

“Jesus, don’t be dense on purpose. Why the fuck don’t we just move in together? You slept at my place like five out of seven nights last week, we don’t make that much money at the shop, and I’m forty years old, Jay!”

Mike made himself stop ranting. Jay had lowered his coffee mug to the counter and was definitely looking alarmed now.

“What does you being forty have to do with anything?” Jay asked.

Mike had no idea why he’d thought this would go over well now, or ever. Jay would pretend they were just incidental fuck buddies until they were 90 years old and half their parts had been replaced by robot limbs. Not that they’d be able to afford such medical advancements, since they’d have blown the money they might have saved on a lifetime of double rent payments just to protect Jay’s fragile ego or whatever the fuck else he was guarding so closely by refusing to really let Mike into his life.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” Jay asked. “Don’t take it personally, okay? I just need my own space. I know it’s not the smartest financial move, but trust me. You wouldn’t like living with me as much as you think you would. In fact, you’d hate it.”

“Why’s that,” Mike asked, still scowling at him.

Jay shrugged and flushed. He picked up his coffee mug and tried to hide his blushing cheeks by sipping from it. The little asshole didn’t want to say outright that he just thought living with Mike would be miserable, probably. 

“I’m very particular about things,” Jay said. “You know this.” 

“Um, yeah? Have I not demonstrated how well I can handle your weirdness by doing your bidding in bed for several decades now?”

Jay rolled his eyes. “Of course you don’t mind when you’re getting off on it. And at least half the time we’re doing whatever you want. Fucking is one thing. The way I like my routines, and my stuff, it’s-- Mike, just drop it, okay? Come help me map out my skeleton placement.” 

“Sounds to me like maybe you can place your own skeletons, Jay.”

“Well, yeah. I could. I just thought it’d be fun to do it together. Kinda like sex, Mike. Why is this hard for you to understand?”

Mike wanted to snap back at him, why is it hard for you to understand that most human beings who fuck the same person for twenty years want to, like, have a home with that person?

But the truth of the matter, which nobody who looked at them would guess, was that Mike was kind of Jay’s pathetic bitch, really. So he went to help him hang skeletons on his walls. Mike was grouchy and sub-verbal, grunting replies while Jay cheerfully ordered him to do this or that, but he still did everything Jay told him to. 

When the major skeleton infrastructure was in place, Jay took Mike’s hand and lead him to the bedroom in a placating, maybe apologetic way. Jay’s ears still got pink every time he wanted to fuck, when he hoped that Mike would figure it out without him having to say so. It was one of many things that kept Mike doomed to do whatever Jay wanted, even though he was a little prick who wouldn’t budge an inch or admit it when he knew he was being unreasonable. Didn’t matter, because Jay also had the pink ears thing, and a million other little things that had conspired to make Mike his slave for life.

“Kinda surprised you don’t own a dildo that’s, like, a giant skeletal finger,” Mike said when he was kneeling between Jay’s spread apart legs on the bed, grinding one knee against the bulge of Jay’s stiffening dick in the way Jay liked. “Or some other kind of bone." 

“How do you know I don’t?” Jay said, and he grinned when Mike’s eyebrows went up. “You don’t-- ah, Mike. You don’t know everything about me.” 

“Bullshit.” Mike was deeply hurt by the idea that he didn’t. What the fuck? Though they’d never lived together, they were constantly entangled in each other’s daily bullshit and had been since Mike was twenty-one and Jay was nineteen. “Like what?”

“If I tell you, won’t that spoil the mystery-- _ah-yuh--_\-- careful!”

“Too much pressure?” Mike said, jamming his knee against Jay’s cock a little more firmly and giving him a warning look. Suddenly he knew what kind of sex they were about to have. He was pretty sure Jay knew, too, when his eyes widened a little as he took in Mike’s expression.

“No, it’s-- S’good,” Jay said, muttering and blushy. He exhaled and relaxed against the bed again, his hips twitching up pitifully every time Mike moved his knee.

Jay had about a thousand or so weird fetishes, and discovering them one at a time had amounted to some of the best moments of Mike’s life, both because it was hot and because every newly uncovered perversion was a prime opportunity to pick on Jay when he was hard and desperate. Mike had initially been a little insulted by the fact that Jay loved being crushed underneath him, as he had a kind of insecurity about Jay maybe just liking him for his size and little else. He told himself now that he was way past that fear, and smirked down at the look of entrapped awe on Jay’s face he pressed more weight onto Jay’s dick. They were both still fully dressed, but Mike could feel Jay throbbing for him even through his jeans.

“Get your shirt off,” Mike said, and Jay hurried to obey. Being pinned under Mike’s weight made him especially subby. Though really, as soon as Jay’s dick was hard he was especially subby. It was only during sex that Mike felt like he truly got the upper hand, at least in recent years. 

“God, fuck,” Jay said, moaning this out when Mike gave him the kind of crazy pressure against his dick that made him start to lose his mind a little. Mike reached down to toy with Jay’s nipples in the meantime, digging his blunt thumbnails in around the hard little buds. Jay arched his back and whimpered when this jammed him up against Mike’s knee even harder.

“How’d you even learn you like this?” Mike asked, hoping he would get credit. 

Jay shrugged, the flush on his throat spreading outward. He hated talking about his pre-Mike past. In high school he’d been a shrimpy social pariah who angsted over his obsessions with girls he didn’t actually want to fuck. Mike had gotten that out of him only when he was drunk, after they’d known each other ten years. 

“I used to fuck my mattress and wish someone would come and squish me from behind,” Jay said. “I’ve told you that.” 

“Yeah, but nobody actually squished you, right? Till me?”

“The hell does it matter, _ungh_, Mike. Let me take my pants off.”

“No. Tell me, go on.”

“Tell you wah-- What? Nobody did a single fucking thing to me that I liked until you, okay?”

“Seriously?” Mike said, freezing. This was major stuff. It almost made up for another rejection of the idea of living together.

“Yes,” Jay said, glowering in a way that made Mike doubt him. Maybe Jay was just being sarcastic, taunting Mike by telling him what he so clearly wanted to hear. 

Mike took his knee off Jay’s dick and drank in the half-relieved, half-agonized little exhale that Jay always let out when he was released. Jay blinked up at Mike, looking hazy and outmatched already, still in his pants and not five minutes since his back hit the bed. Mike leaned up over him on all fours for a moment, denying him any contact, then moved in for a kiss. Oftentimes he could gauge Jay’s sincerity better by kissing him than by asking him direct questions. Jay kissed like a hopeless, undone wreck when he was really under Mike’s sway. When he was just playing games his kisses were more like bites. 

“Well, that just makes me angry,” Mike said when he broke their kiss, which was somewhere between the two Jay extremes.

“You-- What?”

“That people did things to you that you didn’t like.” 

Jay shrugged. He gave Mike the pleading look that always meant the same thing when Mike was trying to edge him into some kind of emotional confession: please don’t ask me more about that. Mike let the subject drop and kissed him again, reaching down between their bodies to open Jay’s jeans while he did.

“Roll over, weirdo,” Mike said when he’d stripped Jay’s pants and boxers off. 

Jay gave him a grateful smirk and did as he asked, offering his ass for whatever Mike had in mind for it. Mike slapped him there a few times, not hard, just to hear him gasp against the bedsheets and see his shoulders jump. He knew it should be enough that the love of his life was such a willing and creative slut for him, that Jay didn’t sleep with other people and would openly say that it was because nobody had ever fucked him even near as well as Mike. It was greedy to want to hear Jay say that it was also because he had a boner for Mike’s heart, or whatever else there was about him that was worth a damn. He didn’t actually doubt that Jay loved him, needed him, all that shit. He just couldn’t stop wanting to be hammered over the head with reminders, which was a him problem, he knew.

“Oh, fuck, yes, yeah,” Jay said, babbling like it was the first time Mike had done this for him. Mike was straddling him from behind, rubbing his still-trapped cock over the crack of Jay’s ass like a threat. He leaned down over Jay’s back and pinned his shoulders, rolling his hips when Jay tried to muffle a whimper against the sheets. 

“Go ahead and try to move,” Mike said. 

Jay tried to so much as flinch underneath him, struggling to fuck his already chafed dick against the mattress. Mike would take him in his mouth after this, to soothe him with his tongue after all this rougher stimulation. If Jay one day flipped poles and decided he wanted Mike on his knees all the time, it would fly with Mike, but if he was honest he preferred being the one who was in charge when they fucked, and also the bigger, taller, scarier-looking one in general.

“Could you come like this?” Mike asked, though he absolutely knew that Jay could, and had.

“Unf,” Jay said, going still underneath him. “Maybe.” 

“Feel that?” Mike ground his dick down against Jay’s ass and pinched the back of his neck, flattening his other hand between Jay’s shoulderblades. “Not gonna let you come till it’s in you,” he said, leaning close to murmur this into Jay’s ear.

“Mike,” Jay said, in seeming agreement. His eyes were closed and his shoulders were twitching. He got so sweet when Mike gave him what he needed. They’d gone super deep into this dynamic before, to the point that it scared Mike a little. He started to feel like he’d body-snatched Jay if he got sub-verbal and hazy-eyed enough, but he couldn’t deny that he loved the shameless, needy way Jay clung to him as he came back to himself, like he’d get lost in his mind forever if Mike didn’t lead him back out by the hand. 

The worst-- or best? --had been years ago, when they were younger and more reckless and Jay was still chubby. Mike had been less so back then, and more of a maniac for whatever reason. They’d only recently started fooling around and were at a boring movie together, nobody else in the theater. Mike had expected Jay to slap him away and glower at him when he reached over to fake-casually rest his hand against the soft bulge of Jay’s dick in the dark, twenty minutes into the movie. When Jay instead went slack-jawed and spread his legs for Mike’s hand, inching down a little in his seat, Mike cursed under his breath, impressed, and tightened his grip. Feeling Jay twitch toward hardness against his palm and watching him chew his bottom lip, eyelashes fluttering, was the hottest thing Mike had ever experienced, even more so than the wild fucks they’d already had in the back of the shop during slow shifts.

Mike was an amateur at teasing Jay for ridiculous lengths of time back then, but he figured a lot of things out in the theater that day, as they both kept their eyes on the screen, not really seeing or hearing the movie. Jay’s breath got choppy, and he would make a soft noise of protest under his breath whenever Mike moved his hand away or decreased the pressure of his grip, giving Jay the heat of his hand through the denim and nothing more. When Mike’s hand moved on him again, in furtive brushes of his thumb or a heavy drag of his palm, Jay’s eyes would slowly sink shut, his hands braced tight around the armrests on his seat like his wrists were tied there. He was shaky and panting at moments, his cock so hard it was pulsing against Mike’s palm like a heartbeat, but otherwise he stayed perfectly still.

After the first hour or so of this Jay tipped over toward Mike and grabbed his arm, squeezing his bicep like he wanted to beg but wouldn’t dare ask him to stop or speed up his teasing, intermittent touches. Mike didn’t even look at him, hard in his own jeans and giving himself the occasional squeeze when Jay wasn’t looking. Jay made noises that Mike wished he was recording. Later he would learn there was no need, that he could bring those desperate, half-sob sounds out of Jay whenever he pleased.

“It’s gonna hurt when you come,” Mike said when the movie had gone to credits and he’d been bringing Jay close to his edge and letting him suffer there for almost an hour and a half. Jay was totally gone, his face buried against Mike’s shoulder and his thighs closed tight around Mike’s wrist, holding his hand between them even while it tortured him. “Don’t scream,” Mike whispered when he reached over with his other hand to unzip Jay’s jeans. 

Jay obeyed this command when Mike jacked him properly and he finally came: he didn’t scream, but he did sob in full-body jerks against Mike’s shoulder and bit the sleeve of his sweater, taking it into his mouth like he needed to gag himself to stay quiet, which nearly got Mike off untouched. 

Mike was glowing with accomplishment when Jay looked up at him after unloading. Jay left his legs spread and his wet dick poking out from the waistband of his boxers like he didn’t care who saw. They were the only ones in the theater and had been all along, but it still felt dangerous, and Mike knew they should stop but wanted to push it just a little further. He tucked Jay’s dick in for him and fed him the come that was on his hand, whispering praise right into Jay’s ear while he licked Mike’s fingers clean, looking hypnotized. Mike thought it was an act until he stood and had to help Jay up. Jay held Mike’s hand like a kid, like he didn’t care who saw him stumbling along at Mike’s side, and that was when Mike felt a little freaked out by how well this had worked. Jay was not one to show physical affection in public, ever.

Mike was still hard in his pants, walking awkwardly and glad for his oversized coat, glad it was winter. Out in his car, he turned on the engine, blasted the heat and took his dick out so Jay could suck him off right there in the parking lot while Mike kept watch, one protective hand spread open on the back of Jay’s head while he made sure nobody could see what they were doing. Jay didn’t seem to give a shit about being seen or about anything except gagging on Mike’s dick. He was laser-focused on his task, and Mike didn’t last long in the heat of his mouth. Jay swallowed it all down when he came, lingered to suckle every last drop from the slit until Mike was whining a little, and sat up to wipe his mouth. 

“You okay?” Mike asked, breathless. 

“Yes,” Jay said, but his fat-pupiled eyes were swimming like he was drunk, or drugged. He usually got hard for sucking Mike off but was soft in his jeans and seemed completely spent in every way. He fell asleep in the passenger seat before Mike had even pulled out of the parking lot. Mike had to buckle his seatbelt for him.

Mike didn’t have a key to Jay’s place back then and wasn’t sure Jay had the presence of mind to open a lock, so he took him back to his own apartment. Jay kept close to him, not talking, and didn’t seem upset but also didn’t seem like himself. Mike was starting to panic a little, even when Jay gave him dopey smiles and nodded lazily every time Mike asked him if he was okay. He followed Mike around the apartment like he was braindead and let Mike undress him and pull him into bed. They huddled in the blankets in their underwear and Mike held Jay close, not sure what to do or say. It was the first time they’d ever cuddled up together like that.

After maybe ten minutes of drifting in what looked like sleepy bliss while Mike stroked his hair, Jay lifted his cheek from Mike’s chest and grinned at him in a way that finally looked cognizant. 

“Um,” Jay said, blinking. “What time is it?”

“No idea,” Mike said, ready to gush apologies or whatever Jay wanted. 

“Jesus. I don’t, like. Entirely remember how we got here.” 

“What-- Seriously?”

“Yeah. We were in the theater, and you were, and-- And now we’re home. Holy shit.” 

Home, Mike had thought, even back then. It was the first and last time Jay referred to Mike’s apartment that way. 

“Sorry,” Mike said, not sure what the hell he was being told.

“Jesus, don’t be sorry.” Jay laughed and pressed himself against Mike’s chest like he entirely approved of where he was, at least. “That’s, like. That was, um. I feel all, uhh. Euphoric.” 

He shivered against Mike and smiled in a way that made Mike believe this. Mike wasn’t sure he’d ever seen Jay look so unguarded and giddy and satisfied even in part, let alone all at once.

“That was fucking awesome for me, too,” Mike said, blurting this even though he feared it would ruin the moment. “Just, you, um. You’re so good, Jay. You’re amazing, I’m fucking amazed.”

“Thanks,” Jay said, softly, and then he hid his face against Mike’s chest again, because he’d come back to himself enough to start blushing.

This was still a top three moment in Mike’s forty years of life, despite the initial terror of not knowing what the fuck to make of it, and thinking about it made him need to kiss Jay. He lifted himself up and flipped Jay over underneath him, diving down to capture his mouth and pinning his hands over his head in the process. Jay sighed against Mike’s lips and flexed up against him, a little shaky in the way he always got when his bones were still singing from being pressed down hard by Mike. 

Kissing Jay made Mike want the kind of sappy, slow fuck that Jay would probably indulge, if he even cared that he’d hurt Mike’s feelings earlier. Remembering the way Jay said _what’s so hard to understand_ made Mike pull back from his mouth with a grunt and pin his shoulders to the bed. Jay blinked up at him, wet-lipped and sweet, waiting to see what Mike would do to him. 

“I’m gonna suck your dick,” Mike said, flicking him on the chin. “Don’t come.” 

“Mhm. Okay.”

Jay had never said _yes, sir_ or anything like that, but Mike didn’t need to hear it. He could feel how much Jay wanted to obey him in the way he trembled all over as Mike crawled downward, licking him here and there. He paused to suck at the slight chub at Jay’s belly, glad all over again that it had come back, if just a little. Jay whined and flinched when Mike lingered there.

“Quiet,” Mike said, and he gave Jay a little bite, heard his breath come faster. 

“Can’t believe you made me eat donuts,” Jay said, pushing at Mike’s head with one hand. 

“You know I like it when you’re bad, Jay.”

Mike pushed Jay’s legs up against his chest after saying so, and grinned at the way Jay tried to twitch his knees together. He went slack and shuddered from his shoulders down to his thighs when Mike held his legs open. Jay had pre-come smeared all over the head of his dick. He was red-faced, couldn’t even handle being kissed without his face burning. 

“Hold them for me,” Mike said, giving the backs of Jay’s knees a squeeze. If there was anything Jay liked as much as being crushed under him, it was being squeezed hard. He bruised easily and wore the marks Mike left on him like badges, would smugly shrug one shoulder if someone mentioned them. The first time this happened Mike almost came in his pants from sheer pride.

Jay got the idea and held his legs against his chest while Mike moved down to lick at his sticky, pinked-up dick. He knew Jay felt raw from all the dry humping and personally loved this part of their routine best, how softly Jay moaned for him when Mike took him into his mouth and gave him warm, wet stimulation to counter everything else.

They both had a stupidly intense oral fixation. Constantly wanting the neck of a beer bottle in his mouth was part of it, for Mike. Jay’s dick was even better. He was just thick enough to fit perfectly, giving Mike a good but not uncomfortable stretch at the corners of his lips and blunt pressure toward but not quite at the back of his throat, and the way Jay’s cock twitched on his tongue while his thighs trembled around Mike’s ears was the sweetest fucking fix for always wanting something in his mouth. When they were younger Mike would have both a beer and a cigarette after sex, smirking at Jay’s futile, half-hearted attempts to squirm out from under his arm because he was embarrassed by his feelings. The combination couldn’t last forever; Jay got over his hang-ups about cuddling and Mike didn’t smoke anymore. But for a time it had been so perfect.

“Can’t--” Jay breathed out, tugging on Mike’s hair when Mike twisted his tongue around Jay’s shaft, head bobbing. “Mike, please-- _nnnh_, I can’t--”

Mike had gotten so carried away that he’d forgotten he was supposed to be only teasing Jay, since he’d ordered him not to come. It wasn’t fair to suck him with heedless enthusiasm and expect him to obey that command, too, so he pulled off and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, sitting up on his knees to admire the view of Jay stretched out for him. Jay was a shaky mess, his thighs spilled open and tense at the same time. His cock had gone from a rubbed-up pink to a near-purple red, so full that he hissed and clenched his teeth when Mike stroked his shaft with just the ghost of one fingertip. 

“What would you do if I walked out right now?” Mike asked, taking his dick out as he threatened this. He’d done it before, left Jay sweat-soaked and vibrating with how close he was to coming and made him wait, told him not to dare touch himself but to wait for Mike to return and take care of him the way he really needed.

“Ah,” Jay said, already past coming up with clever responses to Mike’s teasing. He was rubbing his hands over his face, thighs twitching nonstop. “I, I’d. Mike--”

“Shh, I’m not going anywhere.” 

He almost laughed at himself after saying so. Like Jay didn’t know this by now, even when he was sex-drunk. 

Mike undressed while Jay watched. Jay was tensed up with need, clawing his fingers into the bedsheets. He whined a little under his breath when Mike left the bed just to fetch their lube. He supposed it was technically Jay’s lube, since it resided in Jay’s apartment, and felt a little bitter about this as he knelt on the bed again. What the hell would be so bad about sharing everything? If Jay was perfectly happy falling asleep with Mike’s come leaking out of him and letting Mike lead him near-blind from movie theaters after jerking him off in public, what the hell was he protecting by keeping Mike just far enough away to still make him feel lonely after all these years?

Mike tried to shake himself out of this mindset, but when he pushed his fingers into Jay he could feel a thread of raw, angry hurt guiding his rhythm. Jay had no objection, just moaned for being fucked into rough with two fingers and pressed down against Mike’s first stroke against his prostate, his mouth open and his dick leaking steadily onto his belly, pressed flat there and visibly aching with fullness. 

“Gonna come?” Mike asked, taunting him for being all jerky with the nearness of it while he rubbed at Jay’s prostate in the cruelly unrelenting way that Jay of course loved.

“Ngh--” Jay wrenched his eyes open to lock on Mike’s, seeking permission. 

“The answer is no,” Mike said.

He grinned evilly and took his fingers out, too fast. Jay groaned and threw his head back, one hand slipping across his chest. He grazed a nipple and whimpered for the feeling, or maybe because Mike wasn’t touching him. 

Mike flipped Jay onto his hands and knees before slicking up and pushing into him. Jay took all of him in one smooth thrust and let out the kind of guttural groan that made Mike hope the neighbors would hear. They sometimes gave Mike unfriendly looks in the hallway, like he was some inferior interloper who didn’t deserve to fuck all these desperate noises out of the sunny little blond guy who smiled at them in the elevator. Mike grit his teeth and started thrusting in hard, right away, making Jay shout and drop his head onto the mattress, arms splayed out uselessly at his sides. He arched his back and took it well, like he always had. 

“Fucking designed for my cock,” Mike said, spanking him hard on one flank, then the other. Jay tightened up around him both times, making him moan in approval.

“Mike,” Jay said, muffled and tiny. 

“What, Jay. You want to come while I’m in you?”

“Yes-- Please, _please_\--”

“Mhmm, we’ll see. Gonna, _mmph_\-- Gonna fuck you open a little wider first. Want you fucking sloppy on this dick.” 

Jay groaned and took it, totally surrendered. Mike could see him floating in his happy place even without needing to see his face, which was buried against the blankets. Mike watched Jay’s hands, his fingers spread wide and clenching at random moments before relaxing again. He was obsessed with Jay’s hands, which weren’t exactly delicate but small and cute like the rest of him. His short fingers were among the many parts of Jay that Mike would idly stick in his mouth whenever he could get away with it. 

Having an idea, he leaned over Jay’s back and pushed the fingers on his clean hand in against Jay’s tongue, which was lazy and wet, sluggish when Mike fucked his fingers into Jay’s mouth. 

“Suck,” Mike ordered, to get him doing something beyond just drifting in fuck-sensitive nowhereland.

Jay closed his lips around Mike’s fingers with a weak little _mph_ sound of acknowledgement and did the best he could, eyes closed and lashes fluttering against his hot cheeks. Once he had something to focus on he came back to himself a little and started trying to rock himself back onto Mike’s dick, shifting his legs onto Mike’s so that his ankles were hooked around Mike’s shins. 

The slight adjustment in angle that this created was good for both of them, and Mike groaned to match the muffled whine that Jay let out, drooling around Mike’s fingers as he bowed into the position and tried to get Mike in even deeper. It was probably impossible, but they were both always attempting to drag each other over every edge they met.

“I’ll touch your dick,” Mike said, grunting the words out against Jay’s ear when he felt himself getting close. “But only if you promise me-- _Promise_ me, Jay, that you’ll come as soon as I pump you. One time. If you don’t, you’re gonna regret it.” 

Jay made a choked-off noise of approval around Mike’s fingers and nodded. 

“You sure you’re ready?” Mike asked, and he closed his teeth around the rim of Jay’s ear, just firm enough to communicate his seriousness about whatever punishment he’d dole out if Jay wasn’t. He hadn’t decided what it would be, but it didn’t really matter. Since the beginning, Jay had judged all of Mike’s attempts to be sadistic as far too tame. Mike didn’t give a shit. Jay could go find someone else to carve their initials into him if he wanted to. He wouldn’t have to look long or far for the brand of psycho who’d jerk off to hurting him. He stayed with Mike because he only pretended to want that hardcore shit.

“Ready,” Jay said, when Mike pulled his fingers out to let him answer. He was still nodding, eyes closed. “Mike. Please, oh. Puh, please--”

Jay was so good for Mike, his shameless little pain slut who secretly loved a soft touch, too: he came as soon as Mike wrapped his fingers around his aching cock, shouting Mike’s name against the bedsheets and shuddering all over.

“_Fuck_, yes,” Mike said, slamming into Jay while he spurted in Mike’s palm, his shoulders going limp as Mike milked the last drops out. “Fucking-- There you go, Jay, yeahh, let it all out, ah fuck, you were so full--”

Just the word _full_ on his lips made Mike need his own release too bad to hold it back any longer. He leaned up onto his knees, held Jay’s hips in a crushing grip and threw his head back, thoughtlessly plunging into Jay until he was unloading inside him with a groan. 

Mike went somewhere when he tipped over his edge, too, but only briefly and probably just like everybody did when they had an orgasm. He flopped down onto Jay’s back and hugged his arms around Jay’s chest when he’d recovered a little, nosing at the back of Jay’s neck. Jay always smelled insanely good to Mike, but this was especially true after Mike fucked him, when he was sweat-damp and worn out, melty. Mike could leave his cock buried in Jay until they both fell asleep, and Jay was either all for this or ready to have Mike’s sweaty body off of his right away, depending on how long it took the clouds to clear from his head. 

“God, I fucking love that,” Mike said, mumbling this against Jay’s shoulder and stroking his chest, pinching his nipples so he’d do his little post-sex shiver. “When you, ah. When you come on command, fuck. Who does that? You’re a fucking star, Jay.”

Jay snorted and bucked back against him, a signal that he was ready to disconnect. Mike leaned in to kiss the corner of Jay’s lips before pulling out of him. Jay was smiling, eyes still closed.

Mike left Jay in a heap on the bed just long enough to grab a washcloth from the bedside drawer where Jay had three rows of them neatly folded. These were explicitly purchased for after-sex cleanup, a policy they adopted after they’d been at it for maybe five years. It had been Jay’s idea. He liked to be prepared and have all his accessories easily at hand. They kept some at the shop, too, and Mike had a drawer full of them at his place, but he just threw them in there without folding them, because why bother? They were fucking come rags, and nobody but him and Jay had any business ever looking at them.

“I’ll do it,” Jay said, mumbling this while Mike wiped his come-slick thighs clean, then he just stayed slumped onto his side and let Mike do it for him. He was flushed all over and it would take a while for his splotchy skin to fade back to pale. When they were both relatively less sticky, Mike tossed the cloths away to get crusty on the floor and spooned up behind Jay, hugging his arm across Jay’s chest. 

“You drank too much coffee,” Mike said, because he could feel Jay’s heart still hammering against the underside of his arm. 

“Mph,” Jay said, sounding like he might fall asleep despite this. “Fuck,” he said, and he sat up against Mike’s chest, dragging his hand across his face when he seemed to hear the tiredness in his voice, too. “I can’t take a nap right now.”

“Why the hell not?”

“I have company coming over, I gotta finish cleaning up the Halloween junk and start cooking.” 

“Cooking?” Mike rubbed his fingertips over Jay’s back and pretended not to be insulted that he apparently wasn’t invited to whatever Jay was about to host. At least he wasn’t considered mere company. Mike had clothes here, a toothbrush, and his own bottle of shampoo, because the smell of Jay’s in his hair was a recipe for a day-long semi chub.

“Josh and his girlfriend are coming over to listen to some records they found and watch _El Topo_,” Jay said, turning to give Mike a look as he said so.

Mike snorted and drilled his thumb into the small of Jay’s back the way he liked, watched him arch for the feeling.

“Sounds like the worst night ever,” Mike said. 

“Yeah, well, you’re free to leave.”

“Didn’t realize I was invited to stay.”

Jay shrugged and moved away, evading Mike’s attempts to pull him back. 

“I mean, you’d hate it and would be totally bored,” Jay said, sliding off the bed. He stood and stretched for Mike’s viewing pleasure, coming up onto the arches of his feet and doing a little squeak thing as he lifted his arms overhead. “And when you’re bored, you get obnoxious,” he said, turning back to Mike. 

“Maybe I got my own plans,” Mike said.

“Oh?”

Mike shrugged and tried to look as smug as Jay had when he’d pretended he might have a secret collection of bone-themed dildos that Mike didn’t know about. Mike was pretending, too. He had no plans. 

“Okay, well. I’m gonna get in the shower.” 

“Let me come with you.”

“No! Mike, you know I hate that. Why are you being so weird today?”

Jay stood there naked and looked like maybe he regretted the question. Mike rolled onto his back and tried to act as unaffected as possible. He drummed his hands on his chest and stared up at the ceiling. 

“Maybe you’re the one being weird, Jay.”

“I’m being like I always am. Standard weird, for me.”

“Whatever. Go take your precious solo shower. Guess I’ll get going.” 

Jay bent down to give Mike a kiss. He lingered with his face hovering over Mike’s after he had, studying his eyes and looking like he was trying to decide if he had time to placate Mike’s feelings or not before his evening of pretentious hipster awfulness. 

“Don’t forget to lock up when you go,” Jay said. 

Mike grunted and sat up to give him a parting peck on the cheek. He scratched at the back of his head and watched as Jay walked toward the attached bathroom. Despite Mike’s efforts to clean him up, he had more come leaking out onto his thighs already. Good, Mike thought, narrowing his eyes. Never gonna get all of me out of you.

“Thanks for helping me,” Jay said, turning back when he was in the bathroom doorway. He gripped the door frame, looking nervous about something. “Let me know if you have, like. Skeleton costuming thoughts.” 

“Will do.”

Mike hoisted himself out of the bed to get dressed when he heard Jay’s shower come on. He felt about a million years old and exhausted. His stamina always found a way during sex, but afterward he sometimes felt run over by a truck, his thighs shaking and his back sore. 

On the way out, he grabbed the baggie with the two remaining Halloween donuts, then went over to the skeleton on the couch, lifted one of its posable arms and bent all of its fingers down except for the middle one. 

Jay would find it funny. Mike wasn’t trying to be mean.

Not entirely, anyway.

**

Mike went to a bar on the way home, because he was out of beer at his apartment and didn’t feel like drinking alone on his couch in front of the TV. He’d had other friends before Jay, but had let all those relationships lapse as he got closer and closer to Jay, until every need he had was satisfied perfectly by Jay alone. He didn’t intend to be like this, but even as a kid he’d only ever needed one special friend who knew all his secrets, and the rest were just disposable hangers-on or admirers. 

The more he drank, the worse he felt about being told in a way that felt final that he would never get to have a home with Jay. He knew he already pushed at Jay’s boundaries for needing alone time and wanting to hang out with the friends who didn’t really ‘get’ Mike and seemed to think he was either an arrogant asshole or an idiot, or both. Mike didn’t need these people to like him, but he hated sharing Jay with them. He knew it was childish and dumb but couldn’t help it. 

He tried to cheer himself up by dwelling on the memories he replayed in his mind obsessively when he was trying to reassure himself that Jay loved him back just as madly, like the time he’d asked Jay why he smelled so good. 

“‘Cause we’re animals,” Jay had said. He was spooned into Mike’s arms and still drifting a little, post-sex. “And I’m your mate.” 

He’d been trying to be cynical or funny or something, but Mike heard it like the sweetest promise that they’d always be together and was also extremely aroused by the concept. He got hard against the small of Jay’s back and rolled him over a kiss that eventually lead to a second fuck. 

Thinking about it while alone at the bar, Mike wondered if Jay hadn’t just meant it literally, that they were only together because some pheromone Mike gave off was what Jay’s body responded to, period. They’d met when Jay came into the repair shop as a teenager and acted like a defensive little film snob when Mike made fun of the movie that had gotten stuck in his old VCR. It became clear to Mike when Jay kept coming in with repair issues but also correcting Mike on obscure VCR part terminology that he was breaking these VCRs on purpose and trying to flirt. Mike convinced his boss they needed another day shift repairman on staff, which was a lie, and the next time Jay came in Mike asked him if he needed a job, since he seemed to know so much about this shit. Jay was so skittish and insecure back then that it took Mike almost three years to properly seduce him, despite the fact that it was obvious to anyone who spent five minutes with them that Jay was drooling for Mike’s dick, and when Mike finally gave it to him it was like Jay had been edging himself for years on purpose, because their first fuck was such a mind-blowing relief that they both collapsed onto the nasty floor in the shop’s back room for a full hour afterward, curled toward each other and not quite cuddling but staring into each other’s faces in awe. 

Mike thought it was the most romantic shit ever in the entire history of the universe, and though Jay always reared away from that kind of talk, he’d wanted to believe that Jay secretly thought so, too. But maybe Jay just thought-- Who the fuck knew? He clearly had use for Mike, and had put all of his sex eggs in the Mike basket. They had fun together, were still best friends, and even enjoyed fighting with each other when they both dug their heels in on some petty point they wanted to make. Jay not wanting to live with Mike made no sense, unless he had just settled for Mike because he had some tools that Jay found handy but wasn’t whole-package good enough for him to tolerate first thing in the morning and every night before he went to bed. 

“Not necessarily,” said the random guy Mike had drunkenly gushed all of this to after like six beers.

They were sitting together at the bar, and the place was otherwise pretty empty. Mike felt close to weeping and gave the guy a skeptical look when he put in this comment. The guy was fat and balding, around Mike’s age or maybe a little older, with a friendly face. He’d been a good listener, up till then. 

“What do you mean?” Mike muttered. 

“He might actually want to be with you this way you’re, uh, seeking,” the guy said. “But maybe he has some awful secret that’s preventing it.”

“Huh?”

“You said he’s kinda cagey about his past, right? And at one point he had some kinda miraculous physical transformation?”

Mike couldn’t remember mentioning that specifically, but he had gone over his entire history with Jay in the past hour or so while this fat man sat listening, so he supposed he’d worked it in at some point.

“Remind me your name again?” Mike said, frowning at the guy.

“Rich,” he said, grinning. “And you’re Mike, right?”

“Right. So, what. What d’you mean by secrets, you think he’s cheating on me?”

“Oh, no, nothing that mundane. Just some of the details you mentioned made me think, hmm. This’ll sound crazy, so I should tell you upfront. I’m a professional paranormal investigator.”

Mike’s eyes widened. He ordered another beer.

“Yeah, that’s the reaction I usually get,” Rich said.

“No, I, uhh. I actually have an interest in that stuff, sorta. I mean, it fascinates me.”

“Really!” Rich perked up at the sound of that. He was having a ginger ale, so not drunk at all. Mike hadn’t asked. He figured people in Wisconsin who came to bars alone just for the atmosphere were in recovery.

“Yeah,” Mike said, grabbing for his seventh beer when it arrived. “I watch that Ghost Adventures show, you seen it?”

Rich scoffed and waved his hand over the bar, looking disgusted.

“Zak Bagans is a fraud,” he said.

Mike gasped. He was realizing how drunk he was in stages, slowly. It wasn’t rare for him to talk endlessly about Jay after even a few drinks, but he didn’t usually tell the whole story to strangers.

“I don’t know,” Mike said. “Have you been to his Haunted Museum? It’s pretty legit.” 

“That tourist trap? God, no.” 

“Hmm.” 

Mike brooded for a moment over the memory of dragging Jay to Vegas so he could see the Bagans museum. They got totally trashed the night before and went to a creepy sex club that was Mike’s compromise for making Jay take the trip for the ghost museum. The club was uncomfortable as fuck in a way that ended up being extremely hot, because Jay kept threatening to strip his clothes off and suck some random dick while Mike watched, meanwhile clinging to Mike’s side like he wanted to be protected every time someone looked at him for too long. They ended up going back to their hotel together without even speaking to anyone else at the club and had crazy good sex while riding all the tension that had built up between them since they’d set foot in that place. The next morning they were incredibly hungover at the Bagans museum, and in the haunted doll room Mike blurted that Jay hadn’t been serious about wanting to do weird shit with strangers at clubs, right? 

“I wasn’t sure until last night,” Jay had said, blinking miserably at a doll that had been possessed by a voodoo priestess. “But now I know. Yeah. It was just fun to be there with you. That was really the point. Torturing you like you’re torturing me right now.” 

“Oh thank god,” Mike had said, and Jay laughed. 

“Thank god we both love torturing each other so much?”

“Yes, fuck, exactly.”

That whole trip had been incredible in a way that made Mike love Vegas for life. He’d wanted to drag Jay into a 24 hour wedding chapel but wasn’t stupid enough to actually propose. Back home, he wore his Haunted Museum commemorative sweatshirt all the time. Every time he put it on he remembered the way Jay had murmured all that nasty shit in his ear at the sex club while holding onto his arm for dear life and flinching closer every time another guy met his eyes.

“You look miserable, pal,” Rich said, recapturing his attention. “Maybe I can help.”

“You? How?”

“Uhhh, how do I put this delicately-- What do you know about incubi?”

“Um, nothing? What are you talking about?”

“It’s a kind of sex demon, same as a succubus. There’s a theory that they bred with their victims throughout the centuries, and now there are half-breeds wandering among us.”

“Okay,” Mike said, inching away from him a little. 

“I know, I know, that’s a lot to unpack. It’s just, as I was listening to your tale of woe here, these half-demon, half-humans came to mind, because, you know, they’re still people and they can fall in love with humans and all that, but they can never truly cohabitate or assimilate, because they have to feed the demon half of themselves, too. It’s very sad!”

“Uh.” Mike glanced at his mostly full beer, regretting that he’d ordered another. He couldn’t walk away from a beer, no matter whose company he was suffering. “Sorry, what exactly about my situation makes you think of-- This?”

“It’s just rare that someone would commit to a relationship for twenty years but never on the level of living with the person, especially if they’re otherwise willing to spend almost all their time with them, plus you said this guy you’re in love with has a perverse fascination with horror and gore and pain and so forth?”

“Oh god,” Mike mumbled, not sure how much he’d divulged about the nature of the pain part. “Yeah, but. So what? I think I’d know if I’d been fucking a half-demon for twenty years.”

“Would you, Mike? Demons are very tricky! Even Zak Bagans knows that, as I’m sure you’re aware. They’re very good at lying and hiding.” 

Mike just stared at Rich, too drunk for this.

“And you said he had a sudden change to his appearance some years back?” Rich said, seemingly undaunted by the look Mike was giving him. “That’s a _classic_ coming of age half-incubus trait.”

“That happened when Jay was like thirty-four, not when he went through puberty.”

“Exactly!” Rich’s eyes took on a shine of insane excitement, and he grabbed Mike’s arm. “That’s exactly when the half-incubus finally comes of age, after many years of difficult awkwardness, a kind of prolonged adolescence wherein their powers of attraction are still developing. They have very long lifespans, see.”

“Man, okay, chill.” Mike took three big gulps of beer and waved at the bartender to ask for his check. “I don’t really love you calling my boyfriend a demon, but thanks anyway.”

“Fine, fine,” Rich said, and he reached into his pocket. He pulled out his wallet, then a card. “Just take that, on the off chance you should need some help. Half-incubi are extremely charming and can suck the lives out of their romantic partners without even realizing they’re doing it. You said you feel like you’re his slave, that he drags you around by the dick? Ha! You have no idea how true that might be, if he really is one of these things.”

“Things?” Mike snarled at that word and looked down at the card in his hands.

_RICH EVANS, ESQ. PROFESSIONAL PARANORMAL INVESTIGATION AND LEGAL CONSULTATION. “I’M READY TO BELIEVE YOU!!”_

“You’re a lawyer, too?” Mike said, looking up at him doubtfully.

“Ehhh, I was actually disbarred a few years back. Just haven’t printed new cards. But the number and email address are still good! Don’t hesitate to give me a call if you start to notice anything fishy.” 

“Yeah, great. Sure thing.”

Mike gulped down the rest of his beer and paid his tab. He waved to Rich and ducked out of the bar gladly. He’d stuffed Rich’s card into his pocket just to be polite, and would throw it out later. 

In the meantime, he needed to see Jay. He was drunk and wouldn’t be welcome at the hipster-fest that was going on at Jay’s apartment, but he didn’t care. He’d just give Jay a kiss goodnight, tell him he loved him and go home. All the thinking about their history in the Bagans museum and on the floor of the repair shop had put him in a state, and that Rich character hadn’t helped with his weirdness. Maybe the twenty minute walk to Jay’s place would clear his head, but even if it didn’t, the sight of Jay would help once he got there.

When he got to Jay’s apartment building, he was surprised to look up at Jay’s second floor windows and see the curtains drawn, no light shining from around their edges. He figured Jay and his buddies were listening to spooky records in the dark or some other obnoxious shit and headed up with a sigh. 

An intensely bad feeling spread through Mike’s chest when he reached Jay’s front door and heard no sound coming from inside the apartment. He checked his phone and saw it was barely eight o’clock in the evening. No way Jay’s little party had wrapped up so quickly. Josh was a windbag who could talk the kind of nonsense Jay loved well into the wee hours of the morning. Mike had fallen asleep on Jay’s couch many a time to the sound of that guy’s voice.

He knocked on the door. No response. 

“Jay?” Mike called, stupidly, and he remembered how drunk he was.

Perhaps also for this reason, he decided to let himself into the apartment. Why not? He had his key, and something could be wrong in there. He should check, he told himself, fumbling with the lock. He wasn’t sure why his hands were shaking, except-- Maybe Jay had lied to him about what he was doing that night. Maybe he’d described the polar opposite of the kind of evening Mike would enjoy just to get rid of him. 

The apartment was empty and dark. No food smells lingered from the alleged cooking Jay had been planning to do. Only the faint aroma of coffee greeted Mike when he crept into the kitchen, heart pounding. He left all the lights in Jay’s place off, feeling like an intruder. The smiling skeleton was staring at him from the couch in the living room, flicking him off. 

Mike went into Jay’s bedroom, moving silently and feeling both guilty and betrayed. He would scare the shit out of poor Jay if he’d just gone to bed early for whatever reason. But the bed was empty, neatly made. Mike checked the bathroom. He could still smell the last shower Jay had hanging in the air, and it made his heart ache. Otherwise, there was no sign of Jay. He’d gone out on some secret errand and had made up a story for Mike about staying in with his weirdo friends and old records.

Mike felt dizzy. He pulled out his phone and told himself he had every right to text Jay and tell him he’d come by the apartment looking for him, and where the fuck was he? 

But Mike had lied about having plans of his own. Did it matter? Had Jay even believed him? What the fuck was happening?

Mike was moving through Jay’s bedroom, on his way out, when he noticed a faint glow coming from Jay’s elaborately organized walk-in closet. He froze in place and squinted, not sure if he should move closer. Was this some kind of violation? He normally stayed out of Jay’s closet even when Jay was home, because the idea that Mike’s clothes could be hanging up across from Jay’s but weren’t and never would be was too depressing. 

Now he crept toward the closet doorway, heart hammering. Something was-- Off. He narrowed his eyes and saw that the carefully organized rack of clothing that hung on the closet’s back wall was pulled forward, revealing the rectangular outline of the strange glow behind it. 

“What the fuck?” Mike said, whispering this under his breath. He shivered at the sound of his own voice in the dark room that he’d been in thousands of times and yet suddenly seemed new and unfamiliar. 

There was a secret door at the back of Jay’s closet. Mike was staring at it, frozen in place, so unsure of what to do or think or feel about this information that he couldn’t seem to move. He thought of that weirdo at the bar telling him about half-demons and shook his head. 

That was ridiculous, but, also-- What the _fuck_??

A noise from somewhere in the apartment made Mike jump backward, and he had to clap his hand over his mouth to keep from shouting in alarm when he realized it was coming from behind the secret door. The sound was high and menacing, a powerful electric whir like--

A fucking buzzsaw, not just turned on but in use, cutting through something hard.

Okay, Mike thought to himself, turning to go, eyes wide and almost unseeing as he felt like the eerie glow from around the edges of that secret door had burned his vision away. Okay, well. Surely there was some explanation for both the secret door and for the fact that he felt like he was in imminent danger if he stayed in Jay’s apartment for another second longer, but he’d figure that out later. For now he was running away, as quickly and quietly as he could.

The walk home was an uncomfortable blur, and Mike was still breathing hard as he entered his apartment. He locked and bolted the door behind him and headed for the kitchen to get a beer, remembering on the way there that he was fresh out. He poured himself a glass of bourbon from the bottle on top of his fridge and threw it back in two gulps.

Shaking his head as he felt the burn of it move down his throat, he told himself to calm the fuck down. There was no reason to conflate what that lunatic at the bar had said to him with his sudden-- Discovery. 

But there was also no possible explanation for Jay having a secret door at the back of his closet and keeping it concealed from Mike for the ten years that he’d lived in that apartment that wasn’t going to shake Mike to his core. Especially if the reason involved a fucking buzzsaw. That was unmistakably what Mike had heard, and it wasn’t fair to assume that Jay was therefore back there cutting up the bones of his most recent victim, but that was where Mike’s mind kept going. 

He couldn’t deal with his own idiotic panic, was also very drunk, and decided to go to bed without dinner. As he undressed, he took the card Rich had given him from his pocket and worried it between his fingers, knowing he should still throw it away.

In the morning, maybe he would. He stuck the card into the corner of his bedroom mirror and dove into his bed.


	2. Chapter 2

Mike woke up late the next morning, feeling like he’d dreamed the whole thing. He eyed Rich’s card on the mirror and felt an uncomfortable lurch in his stomach. Nope, it told him. It was all real. And now you have to deal with it somehow.

He showered and dressed for work, feeling both ravenously hungry and pukey with dread. They had a shift at the store that morning, and Mike was already going to be late. Not that he normally cared. He stopped for bagels on his way there, just for the excuse to stall even longer, not sure what the fuck he would or wouldn’t say to Jay about last night when he got there. 

Jay was behind the counter when Mike arrived, wearing a burgundy hoodie over his Lightning Fast shirt and smiling when Mike approached. He looked fresh-faced and supernaturally perfect, aglow from within like some magical elfin prince, but that was nothing new.

“What’s the matter?” Jay asked, his face falling when he saw whatever cautious, freaked-out expression Mike had on his. 

“Uh, nothing. I got bagels.”

Mike held the bag up stupidly and felt like he would cry. Jay was keeping secrets from him. It almost didn’t matter what they were. That fact alone was tearing him apart. 

“No thanks,” Jay said, frowning at the bagel bag and then up at Mike. “I already had breakfast. Seriously, are you okay? You look kinda upset.” 

“I’m just hungover. I went out last night and, uh. Fell asleep without eating dinner.” 

“Jesus, Mike, you’re too old for that shit.”

“Yeah, yeah. I know.” Mike took his seat at Jay’s side and tried to get his hands to stop shaking long enough to spread cream cheese on a bagel. Jay was watching him, still frowning slightly. 

“Who were you out drinking with?” Jay asked.

“My friend Rich. You don’t know him.”

“Oh yeah? Where’d you meet him?”

“Just-- At the bar, we hang out there sometimes. How was your thing with Josh and his girlfriend?” Mike asked, sharply, his heart already thudding hard in anticipation of a lie.

“Oh, that didn’t pan out, his girlfriend was sick or something. I was kinda relieved, was feeling pretty tired last night.” 

“I tired you out good, huh?” Mike said, unable to resist. He smirked at Jay, heartened by the fact that he at least hadn’t claimed the Josh thing had happened. It occurred to him that this might only be because Jay heard someone creeping into the apartment and suspected Mike was onto him, and his heart sank again. “What’d you do instead?” he asked, watching Jay’s face. Jay was an infuriatingly good poker player. Mike had never thought about the fact that he’d therefore be a good liar in general. 

“I just hung out at home,” Jay said. “Went out to the Halloween store, too, got some more skeletons.” 

“More? How many do you fuckin' need?”

“These were unique-looking ones! I need them for some effects I have in mind.” 

“Hmm.” Mike considered this story and wondered if he should just blurt that he was in the apartment and ask what the fuck Jay had been doing with that saw. He stuffed a bagel in his mouth and studied Jay in silence instead. 

“Let’s hang out tonight,” Jay said. “I found a site with fifteen Halloween-themed things to do in Milwaukee.” He lifted his phone to show Mike. 

“Cool,” Mike said, mouth full of bagel. 

“I told my sisters I’d go apple picking with them this weekend,” Jay said, scrolling through the list. “You can come if you want.” 

“Okay.” Mike felt like he was being placated. Jay didn’t usually invite him to family shit. 

“I wanna make this apple thing with cheese curds for the Halloween party. And I was thinking, um. You’re gonna laugh, but would you be into making me nakedly bob for apples, like, with my hands tied behind my back? When we’re alone, of course.”

Mike gave Jay a long look, not sure what to make of this. Jay didn’t normally bring up sex games he wanted to try first thing in the morning at work. 

“Obviously I’d be into tying you up and making you nakedly do anything,” Mike said.

“Jesus, you’re in a shitty mood.”

“I am not. Hungover, is all. I told you.”

Jay shrugged and stared at his phone. He was blushing, seemed hurt. 

Mike wanted to say: yeah, me too. I saw your secret door. Fuck your attempts to be nice!

He wondered all day if Jay had heard him hurrying away after the buzzsaw noise and had put one and two together. Nobody else had a key to Jay’s apartment-- At least, so far as Mike knew, which might not actually mean much. Jay seemed on edge, too, maybe only because of the way Mike kept looking at him. Obviously what Rich had suggested was insane, but Mike had long thought that Jay had some kind of supernatural-level power over him. Other people seemed affected by it, too, and Mike could name at least three of Jay’s friends who would gladly take Mike’s place as Jay’s emotionally enslaved bitch. It was more than his cuteness, though that was a part of it. When Jay went into the back room to heat up the homemade vegetable soup he ate for lunch near daily, Mike did a search for ‘INCUBUS’ on his phone’s browser. 

Scanning over the Wiki article that came up, he’d only gotten to the sentence that read, “_Some traditions hold that repeated sexual activity with an incubus or succubus may result in the deterioration of health, mental state, or even death_” when Jay emerged from the back room, startling him into almost dropping his phone. 

“Looking at something you don’t want me to see?” 

Jay smirked after saying so, as if he was just teasing, but it also seemed like maybe a serious question. 

“No,” Mike said, shoving the phone into his pocket with unconvincing urgency. “Just don’t sneak up on me, jesus.” 

“You’re the one who’s all jumpy.” Jay narrowed his eyes. “Did you do something bad last night when you were drunk?”

“Bad?” Mike felt his heart speed up. It wasn’t like he thought Jay was actually a demon, but if he did, and if Jay had been sucking Mike’s life force out for years and using it to power his own seeming reverse aging, Mike would be doomed. He’d let Jay kill him, was the thing he was really angry about. Whatever Jay was, Mike would rather die than live without him.

“How come I’ve never met your friend Rich?” Jay asked. “Or heard about him, for that matter. You tell me everything.”

“Ha. You think so, huh? Even though you’re all proud that I don’t know everything about you, apparently.”

“I’m-- What?”

“Yesterday! You said--”

“Oh, god, when you were teasing me about skeleton dildos? Mike, I was joking. Fuck, you’re sensitive.” 

Mike turned away from him with a snarl and dug his phone out to read more about the incubus legends when Jay disappeared into the back room to eat his soup. Mike’s eyes started to glaze over when he got to the subsection about regional variations on incubus lore (“_In Hungary, a lidérc can be a Satanic lover that flies at night and appears as a fiery light, or, in its more benign form, as a featherless chicken_”), and when he searched for “half-incubus” the article that came up was extremely short, with no real useful information except that apparently Merlin the wizard had been one. He thought of Rich’s card, and how hard Jay would laugh at him for even thinking about giving that guy a call for more relevant information. 

“Which Halloween thing did you want to do tonight?” Mike asked when he loomed into the doorway of the back room, feeling stupid about where his mind had been going when Jay looked up from his bowl of wholesome soup. 

“Fear District, I guess,” Jay said.

“Oh, Jay. You and your haunted corn mazes.”

“They have other stuff, too! Anyway, it’s tradition.” 

“Yeah, I suppose. Fuck, why’d you have to say that about the apple bobbing? Now I’m gonna be thinking all day about you naked and bent over a metal bucket with your mouth open.” 

“That was the idea,” Jay said, grinning, and things felt normal between them again, except that roughly five seconds later Mike thought about the secret door and started to internally panic again. He tried not to let it show, and gave Jay possessive touches throughout the day, wanting to believe he had a claim on Jay that could conquer any fucked up secret. 

They got buzzed at their favorite bar after work and took the bus to Fear District. It was a weeknight so not too crowded. The temperature was dropping steadily and neither of them was wearing a real coat, so they were both shivery by the time they’d stumbled tipsily through the corn maze. Jay was in a good mood, and Mike was feeling better with some alcohol in him, though still not totally able to forget the secret door or Rich’s warnings about half-incubi. They sat at the back of the mostly empty bus on the way home, and Jay let Mike put an arm around his shoulders to warm him up. 

“Let’s go back to your place,” Jay said. 

“Why mine?” Mike asked. He’d never really thought about it before, but when they spent the whole night together it was usually there, not at Jay’s. 

“I want those tacos,” Jay said, meaning the late-night place near Mike’s apartment. 

Mike would never not be excited when Jay wanted to eat junk food with him, so he agreed to this plan. When they met, Jay was beanpole skinny, and being in Mike’s company eventually lead to him being soft-jawed and squishy, which Mike had preferred. He’d also liked the idea of remaking Jay in his image, rubbing off on him, all that territory-marking stuff. Jay, however, had other plans, and in what felt like a blink he got in great shape and was a real stick in the mud asshole about it for a few years there. Only recently had he calmed down and regained some of the softness Mike had missed. Mike had been hot for Jay’s all-over firmness, too, but had never stopped longing for his more biteable days, and also had felt kind of shitty about himself in comparison, because he’d only gotten fatter and older-looking in the meantime. 

After tacos they went up to Mike’s apartment and fucked in his bed, nothing fancy. Mike thought about Jay sucking his life force out via his dick by taking more and more of Mike’s come up his ass and down his throat over the years, and shamefully the idea made Mike’s orgasm hit especially hard when he unloaded into Jay yet again, letting him have it either way. 

“Nnh, stay,” Mike said when Jay was fidgeting under his arm an hour later, halfway through the movie they were watching on the TV across from Mike’s bed. 

“You’re falling asleep,” Jay said. “And I’m sober enough to get some stuff done if I go home now.”

“Stuff?” Mike’s eyes popped open. Suddenly he felt wide awake, remembering that chilling buzzsaw sound emanating from behind Jay’s secret door. “Like what?”

“Just some crafty stuff for the party, I’m gonna make these little cauldron things for drinks--”

“Let me help,” Mike said, sitting up. “I’ll come with you.”

“Nah, I want to do it myself. It’s the kind of tedious thing that’s relaxing when I do it alone.” 

“Because being here in bed with me is so stressful, you need to unwind?”

Jay rolled his eyes. “Making things is differently relaxing,” he said. “For me.”

“Better, you mean.”

“Did I say that? Mike, what the fuck? What is with you lately? Are you pissed at me about something?”

Mike scowled and debated blurting something about the secret door right then. Alternately, he could start crying and begging Jay to just fucking live with him, soul-consumption or not.

“No,” Mike said, because he had some research to do before he would know how to approach that door most intelligently. Literally or otherwise. “Sorry. I just wanted you to stay the night.” 

“I will tomorrow.” Jay leaned over to kiss Mike at the corner of his lips. He gave Mike coy little licks there until Mike turned and kissed him back, tackling Jay to the bed. 

“I guess it would be wrong of me to hold you here against your will,” Mike said, squeezing Jay’s biceps. 

“It’s cute that you think you could.” 

Mike snorted. “What, you think you could get free if I didn’t want you to?”

“You think you’ve ever really seen me try? That’s just pretend. I fight dirty, and you’re too nice. I’d completely destroy you in a real fight, trust me.” 

Mike reared back a little, aroused by this conversation and the glinting dare in Jay’s eyes. He was also confused about what they were really talking about and a little heartsick. He let go of Jay’s arms and sat back, freeing him. Jay sat up and gave him a kiss on the nose, then scooted out of reach. 

“I mean, if you really want to come with me, you can,” Jay said, his back turned on Mike while he got dressed. “But by the time I’ve walked home I’ll probably be in the mood to listen to Tangerine Dream and paint cauldrons till three in the morning, just warning you.”

“That’s okay.” Mike’s eyes flicked to Rich’s business card. If Jay had noticed it, he hadn’t said anything. “I’ll find something else to do.” 

Jay gave him a goodnight kiss when he was dressed. Mike sat in bed listening to him leave, until he heard the lock turn on his front door. Jay had a key, of course. Mike had given Jay his key first. He’d also said _I love you_ first, and continued to say so way more often than Jay did. But Jay had been the one who showed up to the VCR repair shop counter just for the excuse to talk with Mike, over and over again, until Mike asked him to stay forever. Mike had to wonder now if that was because Jay’s incubus senses had scented a perfect mark. 

Well, he supposed he didn’t _have_ to wonder that. Giving in to this paranoia was fairly insane, even for him. But his mind kept going back to how weirdly right it seemed.

He browsed around on the internet for incubus lore and half-incubus facts for a while before texting Rich’s number. The articles he’d found were either boring or nonsensical, and he felt like he needed personal consultation. Also, he just wanted someone to talk to about his Jay angst, even if they were going to respond to it with ravings about the paranormal. 

_What do you charge per hour?_ Mike sent.

His phone rang five seconds later. Mike groaned and answered it.

“Thought I might be hearing from you!” Rich said brightly. “Took some time to think about what I told you, huh? Any developments since then?”

“Not sure,” Mike said, wondering if he was putting Jay in some kind of danger by setting a paranormal professional on him. Rich didn’t know Jay’s full name or where he lived, so Mike figured it was safe enough. “Tell me, uh. Is there anything to do with, like, a lair? When half-incubuses are involved?”

“What kinda lair we talking about here?”

“I don’t know, you’re the fucking expert! But would they have, uh, like. A private area where they-- Did stuff, maybe?”

“Well, it depends on what breed of half-incubus we’re talking about.” 

“Breed?” Mike said, insulted on Jay’s behalf. 

“Yeah, where’s he hail from, originally? His family lineage, I mean.” 

“Uhh, I think his ancestors were German and Dutch. He claims to have some Native American in him, but that might be bullshit.”

“Yeah, everybody says that. Even demons. Anyway, okay, Germany, interesting. Let me get out my spirit guide, hang on.” 

“Your what now?”

“It’s a book,” Rich said, huffing into the phone as he seemed to be lifting something heavy. “You’ve probably driven by my shop, if you work in the city. Rich’s Occult Books, down by the Fifth Ward. Ah, here we go. You ever heard of alps?”

“Alf?”

“Alps! Like the mountains!”

“Yeah, I know the Alps, I’m not completely stupid.” 

“You know the mountains, but do you know the creatures called alps? I’m guessing no.” 

“Seems not. What are they.”

“They’re one type of incubus, a type that bred with a lot of humans over the years, according to the lore. Let me ask you this: has your boyfriend ever had a special hat that he was real sentimental about?”

“Uhhh, yeah, actually.” Mike’s heart started pounding. Jay used to wear a goofy driving cap that had belonged to his grandfather. His sisters had to steal it and hide it from him to get him stop. “How-- How did you know that?”

“Just a guess, based on what you’ve told me. Look, why don’t you come by the shop? I’m closed for official business, but I’ll let you in when you get here. And my rate is sixty bucks an hour, cash only.”

Mike groaned and debated whether or not to actually do this after hanging up with Rich. It was close to ten o’clock at night, which was normally his bedtime. He always slept best if Jay was tucked under his arm, so that if he woke and adjusted his position in the middle of the night he could see and feel for himself that Jay was safe and warm against him. Half the time when he woke up Jay would be in the other room watching movies or baking fucking cookies at two in the morning; he’d always been an insomniac. The worst was when Mike was half asleep, like tonight, and Jay gave him the kiss off before creeping away on some errand. Mike never slept well afterward. He threw his blankets aside with a sigh and got dressed, telling himself he was just curious about this occult bookshop and that he needed to kill some time there before he’d be able to sleep again.

He was sober enough to drive by then, and the shops in that area of downtown Milwaukee were already pretty dead. He found street parking easily and approached Rich’s Occult Books with trepidation, peering in the windows at an assortment of dusty old tomes propped open to show eerie illustrations on tattered, musty pages. Mike leaned in to squint at a taxidermied bat that was hanging over a stack of books, its translucent wings spread menacingly. He jumped backward when the front door of the shop opened behind him.

“Hey, c’mon in,” Rich said, beckoning. “I found something that I think you’re gonna find real interesting.”

“Great,” Mike said, with dread.

“Can I interest you in some mushroom tea?” Rich asked as Mike followed him into the cluttered shop, which was warmly lit but nevertheless spooky, smelling of bat wings and old books. 

“I don’t want to get high right now,” Mike said, scowling at Rich’s teapot when he lifted it. “But thanks anyway.”

“This shit doesn’t get you high. It’s soothing, supposedly. I never get high, I don’t even drink alcohol. Any moderate mental impairment would make me vulnerable to the countless spirits who would seek revenge on me for banishing them to the otherworlds.”

“Oh.” Mike just stared at Rich, regretting that he’d come. “I’ll still pass, thanks. What information do you have on my, uh. Case?”

“How much do you know about Germanic elf lore?” Rich asked, falling into an ancient-looking red armchair as he asked this. He gestured to the couch behind Mike, also an antique. It smelled like an old lady’s house when Mike sat on it. 

“I don’t know much beyond what I’ve seen on Ghost Adventures,” Mike said. “About any of this.”

Rich scoffed. “Well, I was researching German alp creatures, and apparently they were once thought to be related to elves. I don’t know what your dude looks like, but is he fair-haired and sorta, uhhh. Elfin?”

“Jesus.” Mike grabbed the couch cushion he was sitting on for traction. “How do you know all this? He’s blond and elfin as fuckin’ hell, he’s basically an adorable imp.” 

“Ha!” Rich grinned. “Good, good.”

“It’s not fucking good! Look, man, I, uh-- I found something, in his apartment. I think. It looks like some kinda secret room.”

“Whoa.” Rich’s eyes went wide. 

“So what the fuck do I do, barge in there? Confront him about it? Pretend that I never saw anything so he doesn’t freak out about his fucking privacy or whatever?” 

Mike was asking these things in a general sense, wishing he had someone to ask for advice about this that didn’t involve talk of elves. 

“Man, if he’s half-incubus you’ve got a lot more to worry about than offending his sense of privacy,” Rich said. He sipped from his mushroom tea in an obnoxiously slurpy way, drinking it from a very delicate-looking teacup. “‘Cause if he’s had his hooks in you for twenty years, five or so of those being post-transformation into his final form? Hmm, well-- If I can be blunt, has your physical appearance deteriorated big time in that time frame, especially in the past five years?”

Mike just glowered in answer. Rich nodded to himself.

“Classic half-incubus tragic love story,” Rich said, setting his tea aside. “Your little alp is probably trying to protect you by not sharing living quarters. And not just from the rapid draining of your life force! If he’s feeding regularly--”

“_Feeding_? On what?”

“Uhh, well, some of them can get by on animals, but if he’s got a secret lair in his place that he’s protective of, he’s potentially draining the life force of other men to protect you from, you know, tapping out sooner rather than later. Draining in the sense that he’s killing them, then disposing of the bodies.” 

“Okay, no. This is nuts. I don’t know why I came here.”

“Fine,” Rich said when Mike stood abruptly from the couch. “But you owe me sixty bucks already, and if you want the full hour you’re paying for anyway, since that’s my minimum base consultation fee, I have more I could tell you.” 

“Like what?” Mike asked, near shouting. 

“Like protections against the alp’s powers, for instance.”

“I don’t want to be protected from him. That’s the whole point.”

“What, you want him to suck you dry as fast as possible? Seems like even he doesn’t want that.”

“Stop talking this shit like you know him. I don’t know what the hell I’m doing here.” 

Mike groaned and rubbed his hands over his face, trying to picture Jay happily painting little cauldrons for his Halloween party and not out stalking a victim he would lure back to that secret room for life force-draining and disposal purposes. 

“Just in case you should need it,” Rich said. “I found something in the spirit guide that claims you can immobilize an alp for a period of time by shoving a lemon in its mouth.” 

“What.”

“Might want to invest in a few emergency lemons, is all. I know you think you love this little creature, but now that you’re on to him and you’ve seen his lair, he might turn on you.”

“You’re nuts, man.”

“Okay, fine!” Rich scowled and held out his hand. “Give me my sixty in cash and get out, then!”

“Just--” Mike closed his eyes and groaned, feeling trapped between accepting this bullshit and the worse alternative, which was that Jay didn’t trust him or was doing something behind his back, or both. “Just tell me if there’s a cure for being an alp,” Mike said, knowing the answer already, whether he was being literal or metaphorical about this. Jay had opened up to Mike a little since he was nineteen, and there was the whole physical transformation, but at heart he was still the same stubborn, secretive, self-sustaining person he’d always been.

“No cure,” Rich said. “You can’t even kill them, so far as I can find.” 

“That’s the last thing I want to do. Did you find any stories in your books about somebody who had a long term relationship with a half-incubus? And it ended happily?”

“Uh, no, Mike. By definition, the long term relationship is them sucking you dry until you’re dead and they’re stronger.” 

“Well, that’s not Jay. So. I’ll be going.” Mike dug the cash he’d brought out of his pocket and smacked it into Rich’s outstretched palm resentfully.

“Good luck,” Rich said, shouting this as Mike stalked out of the shop. “And don’t forget what I said about lemons! Couldn’t hurt to have a few on hand!”

Mike slammed the door on his way out. He drove home without putting on the radio, watching the mostly empty streets, wary of spotting Jay out on the prowl. But that was absurd. Jay was at home, painting little cauldrons and listening to obnoxious prog rock records. Mike didn’t need to go over to his place to prove that. He trusted Jay. Sort of.

He ended up parked outside of Jay’s apartment building, feeling like shit. There was some faint light coming from around Jay’s closed curtains, but that could mean anything. He could be sitting up there happily watching a movie while making his Halloween crafts. Or he could have left the TV on for cover noise while he buzzsawed another victim’s remains in his secret room.

Mike made himself drive away, telling himself to stop before he completely lost his mind. He was already out sixty bucks that had only bought him more mental anguish, and still had no idea how to bring up the fact that he’d spotted that secret door in Jay’s closet. The fact that it existed was like an evil power that was draining his life force, regardless of actual mystical properties being involved or not.

He sent Jay a text when he got home:

_Still awake?_

Jay didn’t respond. Mike stared miserably at his phone in bed until he fell asleep. 

The next morning at work, Jay was there before Mike and looking sunny as usual. He smiled at Mike as he made his way in, then looked worried. 

“You okay?” Jay asked.

Mike nodded and silently took his seat behind the counter. 

“Sorry I didn’t reply to your text,” Jay said. “I didn’t see it until this morning, had plugged my phone into the charger--”

“It’s fine,” Mike said. 

“You look, um. Tired.”

“Yeah. Didn’t sleep well. Had weird dreams.”

“That sucks. I’ll sleep over tonight, if you still want me to?”

“Whatever. Sure.”

“Mike--”

Jay clamped his lips shut when Mike looked over at him. He clearly knew something was up but didn’t want to talk about anything serious, as ever. They were mostly quiet as the morning pressed on. Mike worked on a VCR and Jay watched, sipping coffee. Eventually he got started talking about some horror TV show he’d been watching and babbled anxiously about that until lunch. Mike only grunted in reply and didn’t look up from his work much. 

Things were weird between them for the remainder of the work week, but things had been weird between them before and they were masters at not dealing with it. When Saturday rolled around, Jay didn’t seem surprised that Mike still wanted to go apple picking with him and his sisters, despite the fact that he’d been grumpy all week and they hadn’t had sex in three days, which was rare for them. Jay had slept at Mike’s place twice anyway, though not on Friday night, when he’d gone to a concert with Josh. Or so he claimed. 

Jay did the driving on the way to the apple orchard, and Mike sat up front feeling awkward while Jay chattered with his little sisters, who were both in the backseat and full of questions about Mike and Jay’s bizarre life together as usual. It was a topic of particular fascination for them and had been since Mike met them when they were twelve and sixteen, respectively. 

“Are you coming for Thanksgiving this year?” his youngest sister asked Mike at one point, tugging on his sleeve when he didn’t immediately answer. 

“Oh, sure, yeah,” Mike said. “Not like I got anyplace better to be during the holidays.”

“Flattering,” Jay said. 

Mike glanced up into the rearview and spotted Jay’s sisters giving each other a look. They didn’t say much for the rest of the drive, which was aesthetically idyllic with fall colors lining the road, the afternoon a little chilly but bright and cloudless. 

Once they were out in the sunshine amid apple trees, Mike’s mood improved a little. Jay looked kind of exceptionally good that day, under autumn sunlight and in the company of his sisters, who adored Jay almost as much as Mike did and laughed at all of his bad jokes. Mike stared at Jay somewhat lecherously while they strolled around being twee with their apple baskets. He was comparing Jay to his little sisters, noting that they didn’t have the same elf-ish glowiness that Jay did, though both were pretty. Maybe incubus blood only passed to the males in any given family. Perhaps it didn’t translate into half-succubi. Both of Jay’s sisters were happily married to dull men who seemed incapable of holding a conversation about anything other than the Packers. 

When Jay turned from some apple gathering business to find Mike and give him a little smile, Mike felt terrible for the way he’d been acting all week, secret door or not. Here he was trying to ascribe Jay’s specialness to gendered incubus bloodlines, when the reality was that he thought Jay looked immeasurably better than his sisters because Jay was the one he was in love with.

They had lunch at the orchard’s rinky-dink cafe and then headed back to the city with their apple baskets, dropping Jay’s sisters off at their apartments on the way toward Jay’s. 

“I hope you got that metal bucket for apple bobbing,” Mike said, reaching over to touch the back of Jay’s neck when they were alone in the car. “‘Cause it’s all I can fucking think about.” 

“I got it,” Jay said. He kept his eyes on the road and smiled at just the corner of his lips. “You really, uh. Want to do that, today?”

“Fuck yes. Why do you think I’ve held out on you for three days? This is gonna be epic.”

Jay laughed, but he was also blushing furiously and looking very relieved.

Mike hadn’t been back in Jay’s apartment since sneaking in on the night when he saw the secret door. He felt on edge when they walked in with the apples, and scanned the place for signs of anything else strange that he might have missed during his many hundreds of other visits. Jay’s apartment was in an old building built in the 1930s, with a creepy ironwork elevator in the lobby and an old fireplace in the living room that made weird noises when it rained. The natural spookiness of the place suited Jay perfectly, though he adamantly didn’t believe in ghosts and refused to humor Mike’s suspicion that the drippy basement laundry room might be haunted. 

“Soo,” Jay said, looking to Mike in the lost, red-faced way he always did when they were at the start of one of these games and he needed Mike to tell him how to fucking relax and get into it. “The bucket’s, um, over there, on the kitchen counter.” 

“I see. Go get undressed. I’ll get everything ready.”

Jay nodded with visible gratitude and went into his bedroom. Mike forbade himself to think about the secret door in there, though he was tempted to use this game as an opportunity to test a few lines of questioning that he currently had, gently. 

He filled up the bucket with water at the kitchen sink, getting a little hard already for the thought of Jay nakedly leaning over it. Whenever they came up with some new scenario they wanted to try, they usually held off on fucking for a few days beforehand, just to make it that much better. In this case, it hadn’t really been Mike’s plan so much as part of his brooding about the secret room-- But he wasn’t going to think about the secret room. He shut the faucet off and hefted the bucket over to the edge of the tiled kitchen floor, where it met the wood flooring that covered the rest of the apartment.

Jay came out of the bedroom wearing nothing but a pair of black briefs. He wasn’t entirely soft inside them, thickening up a bit just from anticipation. Mike licked his lips, snapped his fingers and pointed at the floor. 

The little breath-hitching swallow Jay did when he got on his knees for Mike was something Mike would never get over. He wasn’t even sure if Jay realized he did it. Mike would never tease him for it or even mention it, just in case, not wanting to spoil its perfection.

On his knees, Jay was already fifty percent harder than he’d been when he’d been standing. He made a soft sound under his breath and pressed his shoulders back slightly when Mike walked over to rub the bottom of his shoe against the straining crotch of Jay’s briefs, feeling him get harder still for that. Jay’s hips moved in a needy little twitch against the pressure, and he bit his bottom lip before lifting his eyes to Mike’s.

Who made you so perfect for me, Mike wanted to ask. He would accept a demon as the answer, wouldn’t care. He would feel lucky to die from having his life force sucked out by Jay. 

Which still made him kinda angry in its unfairness, because if Mike asked Jay to die for him Jay would say, are you crazy? The fuck would I do that for? I gotta go paint some cauldrons, see you tomorrow. 

Mike decided to use his simmering rage about this for their game.

“Here’s the deal,” he said, holding two apples in one hand, a third in the other. He’d thought about juggling them menacingly, but the risk of fucking that up and making Jay laugh was too high. “You’re an imp who lives in the woods.”

Jay smirked a little at that, but he was still listening, maybe because Mike’s foot was still pressed against his dick. 

“I’m a humble apple farmer, and you’ve been stealing my crop for years. Now I’ve finally caught you, and you’re at my fucking mercy. Sucks for you. Hands behind your back.” 

Jay hurried to obey, his back straightening and chest opening for Mike as he crossed his wrists behind the small of his back. His breath quickened while he watched Mike set the apples aside and take off his belt. Mike didn’t normally wear a belt, found it uncomfortable. He’d put one on today specifically for this moment. Jay had probably noticed, in the car or at the orchard. Mike hoped he fucking appreciated it. 

It looked like he did. Jay was already peering up at him with that surrendered haze fuzzing into his eyes, still edged with something jittery for now. Mike knew he was imagining things, but he always thought Jay’s eyes looked greener when he was like this. Maybe it was just the angle, the way the light hit them when he was on his knees and Mike was standing over him. Mike folded the belt in half in his hand and stroked it along the line of Jay’s jaw until he sucked in his breath a little, waiting to see what would happen. Mike grinned and went to kneel behind him. 

“I’m gonna give you one chance to escape,” Mike said while he bound Jay’s wrists together with the belt. “And I’m not gonna make it easy for you.” 

Jay made a half-swallowed noise that sounded like: god, yes, make it fucking impossible.

“Hmm, you look very human, imp,” Mike said, running his hands over Jay’s sides until he shivered and gasped. “Wonder what else about you looks that way,” he said, yanking the briefs down in back to expose Jay’s ass. 

“Ah,” Jay said when Mike teased him there, spreading his cheeks with a clinical touch, like he was examining some unfamiliar territory and not what already belonged to him. 

“Interesting,” Mike said, and he gave Jay a hard slap on the ass that almost knocked him forward. Jay managed to stay upright on his knees, and was breathing with his lips parted when Mike stood and looked down at him again, his fingers going to the underside of Jay’s chin. He pushed Jay’s mouth shut. “So, your chance for freedom involves these apples you were so desperate to steal, thief.” 

Mike took them from the counter and dropped them into the bucket one at a time. The bucket was oval-shaped, a foot and a half at its widest point and about ten inches deep, big enough for a dozen apples to float comfortably. Every time an apple hit the water, Jay got splashed a little and flinched, eyelids fluttering. 

“If you can lift one of those apples out of the water with just your teeth,” Mike said, goosebumps crawling over his skin because he’d gotten off on Jay’s teeth in a lot of different ways over the years, and could see the red on Jay’s cheeks deepening already for the mention of them, “Then you’ll be free,” Mike said, pointing at the apples. “So go ahead, try. Sounds easy enough, doesn’t it?”

Jay blinked up at Mike a few times and gathered himself before looking down at the floating apples. When they first started doing this kind of shit Mike used to try to get him to talk, because Jay was a good ad-libbing partner in general. He’d realized pretty quick that Jay wanted to hold his tongue as much as possible during most of these games, that not having to talk was part of what he loved about them.

“It’s like you’re reading my mind,” he’d said to Mike once, on a rare occasion when they’d discussed this after doing it. “Which would be the most massive violation, you know, but it’s just really fucking hot, and, like, a relief. Because it’s you.” 

Mike counted this as his favorite compliment ever. He also considered it to be a kind of love confession. _Because it’s you_. He wanted that tattooed on the backs of his eyelids so he could close his eyes and see it whenever Jay pissed him off.

Jay bent over the apples and breathed against the water, rippling the surface. His briefs were still pulled down in back, and Mike would get him fully naked soon enough. He palmed himself through his jeans as he watched Jay awkwardly mouth at one of the apples. It floated away from him and he tried for another, getting nowhere. Jay breathed a little harder against the water, already frustrated. He hated not being good at something, especially if Mike was watching.

“Aww, look at you,” Mike said. “Where are your magic powers now, huh? Gosh, you look pathetic. Poor little imp, I think you might be out of luck. But there you go, keep trying. I’m _sure_ you’ll get the hang of it.”

Mike often wondered if he was being too mean during these things. Jay always scoffed at him if he asked, and he shuddered at the mention of a safe word or any other precautions that would ‘ruin’ it, according to him. In the one where Jay measured Mike’s dick, Jay was a world-renowned monsterology scientist and Mike a monster he was studying, who got loose and fucked Jay with his monster dick. The first three or four times they did it Jay had to keep breaking character to tell Mike to be more like a monster. 

“Here, let me help,” Mike said, moving over to kneel down behind Jay. “I bet I know how to get you to focus.”

He pulled at Jay’s briefs, considered ripping them off but decided against it and eased Jay up off his knees one at a time to slide them down. Mike flung them away and turned back to run his hands from Jay’s ass up to his shoulders when he was fully naked, then down again, wondering how long they’d keep at this and if Jay’s back would be sore after. Jay was still bent over the bucket, still trying futilely to even keep one of the apples near his face for long. Mike would take good care of him when they were done, whether his back hurt or not. He had plans for the aftermath of this, too.

“Hmm, what’s this?” Mike said, reaching around Jay’s front to give his cock a few tugs. Jay was hard and dripping by then, pushing into Mike’s touch and lit up like a livewire for this weirdness already. He always loved it when Mike talked a lot and got super into the story without seeking Jay’s approval for its details ahead of time. “Leaking and everything,” Mike said, leaning over Jay’s back to murmur this near his ear while he used his thumb to tease more fat drops of pre-come from the slit of his cock. “Maybe you wanted me to catch you.” 

“Muh--” Jay said, almost getting Mike’s name out before he mashed his lips together. 

“God, you’re making so much for me,” Mike said, gathering pre-come onto the tips of his fingers. “Would be a shame to let it go to waste. Spread your legs, imp. Let’s see how well you do with a little encouragement.”

Jay slumped down lower over the bucket when Mike spread him with one hand and brought the pre-come down to lube up his hole. He’d have to go get real lube eventually, but he could build that into the story somehow. In the meantime he just teased with his finger, circling the rim and watching Jay’s shoulders tremble harder. Jay’s stomach muscles would be aching already, Mike realized, from the strain of keeping his balance over the bucket without the use of his hands. Mike pushed one finger in slow and stroked over Jay’s shaky belly with his other hand, then tucked his arm across Jay’s waist to help hold him up.

“Fuck,” Jay said, soft, under his breath, when Mike rubbed at his prostate. Jay let his weight slump forward against Mike’s arm, a few strands of his hair falling loose from their gel-hold and touching the surface of the water.

“Keep going,” Mike said, making his voice cold. “I’ll hold you up like this. Should help.”

“Nnh, okay, yeah, sorry--” Jay rolled his hips back just once before continuing, mouthing at the apples more weakly and breathing hard. He was clenching around Mike’s finger in needy little pulses already, and Mike could feel him getting warmer all over, his skin heating up against Mike’s forearm. 

It was such a strangely perfect configuration that Mike wanted to kiss Jay for coming up with it. Later he would. In the meantime he just smiled evilly at the sight of Jay bent over for him and failing to capture any apples, shaky and breathless in Mike’s supporting grip. Mike felt like he was holding Jay up not just with his arm but also with the finger he had inside him, hooked just right to get him moaning and huffing against the surface of the water.

“Maybe you need something bigger to root you in place here,” Mike said, wiggling his finger inside Jay as he spoke. “Something thick and hard that you can really settle down onto, huh? Sound good?”

“Yes, please, fuck,” Jay said, moaning around every word. 

“Mhmm, okay. Stay here.” Mike slid his finger out and let go of Jay, who slumped forward helplessly without Mike’s support, his face nearly crashing into the water. Jay steadied himself and looked back over his shoulder when Mike stood. “Stay,” Mike said, putting the flat of his shoe against Jay’s back.

“Oh fuck,” Jay said, whispering. His eyes slid shut, and his hands clenched into fists behind his back. “Yes-- Yeah, okay. I will.”

“No shit. Be right back.”

Mike whistled to himself while he went to get their lube. Entering Jay’s bedroom made him freeze and return to reality a little, too harshly-- The closet door was open as usual, and the row of hanging clothes that had been pulled out that night were again braced against the back wall again, hiding the secret door. 

Mike chewed his lip and went toward the drawer with the lube, telling himself to not even think about the fact that he had Jay tied up and sex-stupid in the other room, surrendered to their game to the point that if Mike took a long time to get the lube, Jay would just assume he was just being teased, that Mike wanted to make him wait for hotness purposes entirely. Mike could take a look at how the bar that Jay’s clothes hung on functioned, meanwhile, and at what was behind them--

He didn’t, couldn’t. Jay trusted him, and he was especially vulnerable. But the thought of even the possibility of doing this made Mike a little queasy when he glanced into the closet once more on the way back to the kitchen, seeing nothing out of the ordinary. 

In the kitchen, the sight of Jay waiting on his knees tugged at Mike’s heart. He put the door business aside and cleared his throat, getting back into character. Jay half-turned to look at him, shy and uncertain like wasn’t sure if he was allowed to move.

“Got something for you,” Mike said, thunking the lube onto the counter and kicking off his shoes. “Think you’ll like it. It’ll help keep you steady while you do your task.” 

He got rid of his socks and pants, boxers. His dick had been hard since he dropped the apples into the water, and he was half-tempted to draw this out for a full hour, but he needed to be inside Jay too bad to wait any longer. It had been three fucking days, after all. He was an addict, hooked on Jay’s incubus powers or just on the feeling of being connected to him like that, as close as they could get. Whatever made him need this like breathing was never going to let him go. He knew that much for sure.

“Keep working on those apples while I take care of you back here,” Mike said when he was kneeling behind Jay again. He grabbed Jay’s shoulder and shoved has face down toward the water. “Up on your knees a little,” he said, lifting Jay’s hips with his other hand. “I know your type,” he said, and dragged his thumb over Jay’s slick hole when he shifted into the position, offering his ass to Mike obediently. “Need to be filled up so you can think straight, huh? Helps you concentrate, I bet. Feeling too empty without something in there, aren’t ya?”

“Yes,” Jay said, his voice just a little squeak already. “Mike.”

Mike grinned. Once his name started coming out during these things, Jay was really into it, not even thinking or caring about staying in character. He was just his most basic, secret self, however Mike dressed it up in order to get him here.

“That’s what I thought,” Mike said, and he spanked Jay a few times, holding him up by the shoulder so he wouldn’t fall forward into the water against the force of it. Jay moaned and dipped his forehead down like he wanted to put his face in the bucket with the apples, his bangs getting wet. Mike held him steady and gave his ass a few more slaps before lining his slicked cock up to push inside.

Jay made soft, grateful noises while Mike filled him, taking his time and letting Jay feel every inch of fullness and stretch as he sunk in deeper. Sometimes Jay wanted it all shoved in at once, but not always. Mike was good at reading what he’d like best in the moment. They’d been doing this for so long. After three days of nothing, Jay felt as tight as he had that first time in the back room at the shop, when he’d said _do it, then, I dare you_, thinking Mike was joking when he drunkenly confessed that he thought about fucking Jay every night, that he couldn’t even fall asleep anymore without letting his mind come to rest on the thought of being inside his best friend.

“There you go,” Mike said as he came to a full seat, his hips pressed up snugly against Jay’s pushed-open ass. “Nice and full now, aren’t you?”

“Nghhh,” Jay said, his head dipping down toward the water again. He’d nosed at the apples lamely while Mike pressed into him but hadn’t really tried to bite one for a while.

“Go on, then,” Mike said, cupping his hand around Jay’s throat. He slid his other arm across Jay’s jittery chest, helping him stay upright. Jay’s muscles were jumpy all over, starting to tire out. “Bite them,” Mike said, shoving Jay forward a little. “Get one in your mouth. You can do it. I’ll hold you steady. Got you stuck nice and tight on my dick, just like you wanted, so be good and do as I say.”

Jay made a breathless noise of agreement and pressed forward against Mike’s hand at his throat, opening his mouth against the nearest apple when Mike guided him toward it. He whimpered when the apple spun in the water and floated away, his ass clenching up tighter around Mike’s dick when he tried to chase the apple with his mouth. Mike swallowed his groan as best he could, wishing now that they hadn’t gone without for three days. He was going to come too soon, probably. Jay was just so good like this, too sweet when he cried on Mike’s cock in those little whimpers.

“Keep trying,” Mike said, his teeth grazing Jay’s ear. “I’m waiting. Do good for me.”

Jay nodded to himself and sniffled pathetically before going for another apple, failing again. His shoulders jerked with a frustrated huff, or maybe it was a sob. 

Mike started fucking into Jay just a little, shallowly, guiding him toward apples and grunting with feigned disappointment against Jay’s ear every time one floated away from his panting mouth. Jay made answering sounds of apology and kept trying again, again, until Mike was fucking him hard enough that he was just snapping his teeth at the apples mindlessly, eyes closed.

“Hang on,” Mike said, breathless behind him and wanting to feel Jay’s sweat-slick back flush against his chest. He leaned back and undid the belt, freeing Jay’s hands. Jay’s arms flopped limp against the floor while Mike considered if he wanted to use the belt for anything else. He wasn’t into choking or whipping as much as Jay claimed to wish he was, but he did like putting collar-like things on Jay. Figuring they had plenty to work with already, he tossed the belt away and leaned down to grab Jay’s hands, bringing them to the rim of the bucket. “Hold,” Mike said, and Jay gripped at it weakly, his fingers flexing under Mike’s. 

“Mike,” Jay said, pressing back mindlessly against Mike’s dick to beg for more thrusting when Mike leaned onto him again. 

“Quiet. I’m making this easier for you, see? Since you need me to, clearly. You can brace yourself with your hands now, how’s that? Should make it simple.” 

Jay breathed out through his nose and squeezed the sides of the bucket, leaning over to try for one of the apples. He nicked it with his teeth before it went under the water and floated away. When he sobbed just once under his breath at this defeat, Mike moaned for how good it felt against his chest, the way Jay’s whole body hitched with it and squeezed up around his dick. 

“You feel good on my cock, imp,” Mike said, resuming the game talk mostly for himself. Jay wasn’t really listening, just straining for apples and trying to milk Mike’s cock with his ass when Mike wouldn’t let him bounce on it. “Who knew you’d be so warm inside,” Mike said, murmuring this against Jay’s ear before licking him there. “Maybe I’ll keep you around and give you a good fucking for every apple you’ve stolen from me over the years.”

Mike buried his face against Jay’s throat and thurst into him, lapping at the sweat that dripped from his hair line and drinking in the sounds Jay was making, too, his whimpers giving way to deep moans from the bottom of his chest. Mike could feel it on his dick, the way Jay’s whole body vibrated with pleasure around and against him, and he let himself imagine this was when the incubus powers took hold, when Mike would do anything to stay inside Jay and keep fucking him hard, even if he was suddenly sure that Jay was stealing years from his life by taking his come.

“Here,” Mike said, when he felt himself getting close. He knew Jay would come if his cock was touched now, but didn’t want that yet and grabbed for an apple instead. “Open,” Mike said, holding it against Jay’s panting lips. “Bite, hold it in your mouth.”

Jay was so shaky and gone that he struggled to even do this, but he managed, sinking his teeth into the apple that Mike pushed against his mouth. He breathed hard through his nose and pinched his eyes shut, only able to hold the apple between his teeth for a few seconds when Mike started fucking him hard. The apple fell back into the water, missing a bite.

“Terrible,” Mike said, and Jay shuddered all over, holding the piece of apple in his mouth like he wasn’t sure if he was allowed to chew it. “Swallow that,” Mike said, nudging his dick into Jay to punctuate this command. “Chew first,” he added, not sure Jay would even remember how eating worked when he was like this.

Jay chewed like doing so was taking all the physical and mental energy he had left, slow and methodical. Mike cupped his hand around Jay’s throat again so he could feel him swallow it down. 

“Try again,” Mike said, grabbing the apple. He felt himself grinning when Jay sobbed dryly and shook his head. “Stop crying,” Mike said, petting Jay’s side while he brought the apple up to Jay’s mouth again with his other hand. “You can do it. Do this for me. I want this in your mouth when I fill you up with come, understand?”

“Mph,” Jay said, and he sniffled, nodded. He opened his mouth, lips shaking, and took a bigger, shallower bite this time, lodging his teeth in as tight as he could.

“Good,” Mike said, petting him again. “Gonna fuck you hard now. Be good for me, keep that in your mouth.”

Mike leaned back, sitting up on his knees and dragging his hands over Jay’s sides as he positioned himself, making his touch like a warning. Jay was stock still except for his shaking shoulders, his hair all fucked up and wet in front, dripping onto his face. He was flushed everywhere except the small of his back, which always stayed very pale. 

Mike started slow, wanting to last and also wanting to see if Jay could actually do this. Jay wanted to follow Mike’s orders so badly that Mike could feel it reverberating through his own bones, sinking into him via Jay’s near-overworked body. Jay didn’t even know why he wanted this anymore, in this state, Mike was sure. All he knew right then was that he had to be good for Mike, also that it was Mike who was inside him, making him ache for this, holding him wide open on the feeling.

“There you go,” Mike said, getting a little erratic as he fucked in harder, still not as hard as he wanted to. “Good, Jay. You’re doing so well. Bet you wish that was a big, fat cock in your mouth instead of an apple. Wish you were taking it from both ends, don’t you?”

Mike fucked into him hard after saying so and had to stifle a mean laugh when the force of it knocked the apple out of Jay’s mouth and he made a strangled sound of panic. 

“Oh fucking hell,” Mike said. “Now you’re gonna get it.” 

“Put my head under,” Jay said, rushing this out with his voice all broken up and his head bowed toward the water. “Mike. Please.”

“What-- In the bucket?” Mike could hear himself breaking character. He didn’t like the idea.

“Yeah, puh-- Please, Mike, _please_, please--”

“Okay, okay.” 

It was rare that Jay started begging for anything specific at this point, unless Mike prompted him to. He grabbed a handful of Jay’s hair, realizing as he did that this had probably been the whole point of his apple bobbing scheme. The little shit thought he could trick Mike into doing some hardcore, dangerous drowning game by presenting it as a goofy, Halloween-themed thing.

“Hold your breath,” Mike said, knowing Jay wouldn’t want to be asked if he was ready. He felt Jay suck in his breath, felt it around his cock and everywhere, and felt himself holding his breath, too, when he dunked Jay’s head into the water among the apples. He couldn’t take the feeling of holding him under and pulled him out right away.

“Longer,” Jay said, gasping this out as soon as he was breathing again, eyes closed against all the water that was dripping from his soaked hair over his face. 

“Jesus,” Mike said, noticing then that Jay was white-knucking the bucket. His palms would have ugly marks from the metal rim. 

“Mike, please-- Just ten, ten seconds, please--”

“Five,” Mike said. 

“Yes, okay, yeah--” 

Jay sucked his breath in dramatically, so Mike would see it. He didn’t realize Mike could feel it, wasn’t thinking about anything but what he wanted. Mike grit his teeth and pushed him under, gripping Jay’s hair so hard that he knew it must hurt. After one second, Mike already hated this, but he counted to five before he pulled him back up. 

Mike expected Jay to beg him for ten seconds as soon as he took a breath, but he didn’t. Jay sucked air into his lungs, threw his head back and came, pulsing so hard around Mike’s dick that Mike followed him right over the edge as if he’d been pushed from behind with two hands. He blacked out a little, but not before crushing Jay against his chest with both arms so he wouldn’t fall forward into the water again while they both unloaded, Jay shooting all over the side of the bucket and Mike burying his orgasm as deep as he could into Jay, his hips rocking under Jay’s even after he’d emptied himself dry. 

Mike had to focus on getting his own breathing under control before he could turn his attention to Jay, who was limp in his arms. Mike sat back and Jay went full boneless against his chest, eyes closed and mouth open, his head lolling onto Mike’s shoulder. Jay had come approximately as hard as Mike had, based on how his ass had closed up almost painful-tight around Mike’s cock when he went off, but he seemed less shaken by the experience than Mike felt. Maybe it was just the head-dunking thing. Jay was all blissed out and Mike felt on edge, afraid to unlock the vice grip he had on Jay’s chest. 

“Okay?” Mike said, toying with one of Jay’s nipples to get him to focus.

“Mhm,” Jay said, voice cracking. “Mike.”

“Yeah?”

Jay just turned his face against Mike’s throat and exhaled a long, choppy breath, melting into Mike’s hold on him.

“Here, let’s-- Gonna help you off me now,” Mike said. 

They disconnected, and Jay was unsteady on his feet when Mike helped him stand. He didn’t protest when Mike picked him up entirely, just slumped in Mike’s arms and let Mike carry him through the bedroom, then into the shower.

“Want me to leave you alone in here?” Mike asked when they were standing under the hot water together, arms around each other.

“Mike,” Jay said, tightening his grip on him. His head was resting against Mike’s shoulder, eyes closed. “Nn, don’t go.”

“Only kidding. I gotcha.” Mike gave him a squeeze and a kiss on top of his head. “Just, you know. Normally you’re so determined to shower alone.”

Jay held him even tighter in answer. He’d give Mike hell for this later, maybe, but it was only fair that Mike had used this as an excuse to shower with him, something Mike loved that Jay usually refused to indulge. Jay had tricked him into that head-dunking stunt, after all. He’d known Mike would only do it once they were both worked up enough. 

“Does your back hurt?” Mike asked, rubbing his hand between Jay’s shoulder blades.

“Nn. I dunno.”

Jay was still pretty gone. Mike stroked his wet hair and fought off the urge to ask about the secret room before Jay came back to himself fully. That would be wrong. But he had the sinking feeling that it was the only way he’d ever get a real answer. When Jay kept secrets, he kept the fuck out of them. He would have gone all his life wanting Mike and not asking for him if Mike hadn’t catapulted onto him that day at the shop.

They lingered together under the hot water for a long time, and when Jay lifted his head for a kiss Mike felt like he was breathing the life back into him. Jay’s lips were soft and pliant against his at first, and gradually less so as he regained his thought processes and kissed back hungrily, in a way that made Mike realize they hadn’t even kissed for the past three days. Jay pulled free to give Mike a grin and reached up to tug on Mike’s ears, which was a kind of unspoken signal that he was himself again. 

“That was perfect,” Jay said. His voice was still a little rough, also small. “Thanks.”

“That was kinda fucked up, Jay.”

“What, you-- For five seconds? I’ve been practicing for this, holding my breath. I wanted to ask you for at least thirty. To start!”

“Fuck that. I could barely handle five.”

“Aw, Mike. Poor Mike. I know I’m evil, I’m sorry. C’mere.” 

Jay seemed sincere, or at least felt that way when he leaned up to kiss Mike again, pressing his tongue against Mike’s once he’d coaxed the frown off his lips. He pet the wet stubble on Mike’s cheeks and rubbed his face there, still smiling like a satisfied brat who’d just gotten away with something. He was lucky Mike liked that look on him.

“Too bad I love your evil little ass,” Mike said, reaching down to squeeze Jay’s waist with both hands. “Or I guess you’d get more of what you really want.” 

“What’s that mean? I told you, that was perfect.”

“Yeah. But I guess me nearly drowning you would have been perfecter.”

“I don’t have a death wish. I just like the way it feels, when-- You know what I like.”

Jay flushed and looked a little nervous, maybe still too close to his vulnerable state for this conversation. Mike hugged him close and held him against his chest for a while before reaching for the shampoo. He grabbed Jay’s bottle, something that cost like thirty fucking dollars but admittedly worked really well and smelled amazing.

“Let me do this and I’ll forgive you,” Mike said, holding up the bottle.

“Yeah, you got what you wanted, too, see? Showering together, your favorite.”

“Oh jesus. It is not my favorite.”

“What’s your favorite, Mike?”

Mike thought about this, still feeling a little pouty. He wasn’t sure if Jay meant sex stuff or intimacy in general. If it was the latter, Mike’s favorite was sleeping with Jay pressed against him and waking up to find him there. He loved it when his sheets and his pillowcase smelled like Jay, even when it was torture because he was already gone.

“Eating you out,” Mike said, because he didn’t want to give Jay any more ammo just then.

“I’d rather you did that right now than wash my hair,” Jay said. “You know I like it best when I’m all tender after you fucked me real good.” 

Mike rolled his eyes at Jay’s attempts to be coy. He was carefully slipping the shampoo bottle from Mike’s hand already.

After fooling around in the shower they ended up in Jay’s bed. Mike was exhausted and reveling in the feeling of holding Jay under the blankets as the sun went down outside, and was trying not to think about the closet. He had his back to it and felt like something in there was staring at him. 

“Are you falling asleep?” Jay asked. 

“Yes. Why aren’t you?”

“I dunno, I’m hungry. I’m gonna try making that apple thing, you want to help me?”

“Help you how,” Mike muttered, having a feeling he knew what the answer would be.

“Liiiiike, go get me some cheese curds from the mart? While I make the crust?”

“What crust.” Mike rolled onto his back miserably, already resigned to doing Jay’s bidding. He almost wanted to find out it was because of dark magic and not just his own being whipped-ness.

“It’s a crust for this pie thing, with the curds and the apples, I want to test it out before the Halloween party. We can have it for dinner. I’ll do everything, but I don’t feel like doing my hair and all that shit so can you please go get the curds for me? Please?”

Mike stared angrily at the ceiling, sighed, but ultimately did it. The cheese mart was on the other side of town and was preparing to close by the time he got there. He had to beg the guy at the counter to sell to him, and it was sleeting a bitter rain when he went back to his car with Jay’s precious cheese curds tucked into his jacket. He was ready to be in a vile mood about this for the rest of the evening, but when he got back Jay was peeling apples in his boxers and a Creepshow t-shirt, hair all messy, and something in the oven smelled really good. Mike kissed Jay on the forehead, handed over the cheese curds and decided there was nothing to be mad about, really. Jay had cleaned up the mess they’d made with the apple bobbing sex and stowed the metal bucket away somewhere.

Wondering where he’d stashed it, Mike considered that the secret room in Jay’s closet might be some kind of sex dungeon. He tried not to start panicking at the thought that Jay might have sex with other dudes in there, people who would hold him underwater for minutes at a time if he asked them to, or maybe if he didn’t ask. It was a stupid fear. Mike knew Jay well enough to understand he wasn’t fucking around, but the related imagery still haunted him a little. He just needed to know what the fuck was in that room, but he couldn’t make himself ask, because he was also afraid to find out. 

He was determined to enjoy himself at Jay’s place despite his angst, because he felt like it had been forever since they’d had an evening in with Jay cooking something and wearing his underwear at the dinner table, where they both wolfed down two helpings of apple pie with cheese curds melting on top. Mike put the Packers game on afterward and Jay reclined against him with his laptop for a while, then flitted around the room doing Halloween decorating while Mike dozed off on the couch. It was fucking cozy, and Mike tried to savor it rather than inwardly mourning that every night couldn’t be like this. He didn’t even really care when the Packers lost.

Four beers into the evening and starting to feel achy in both his knees and his back from all the Jay-servicing he’d done during the course of the day, Mike fell asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow in Jay’s bed. It also helped that Jay was spooned up behind him, smelling like baked apples and craft glue. Mike barely spared the secret room a thought, until he woke up at three in the morning from an indistinct bad dream, blinked until his eyes adjusted, and found himself staring right into the dark, open closet on the wall opposite the bed. 

Jay was still tucked in behind him, sleeping soundly. He usually didn’t have trouble with his insomnia after a day when they did some intense sex shit that brought him to his nowhere place, even if he’d come out of it long before going to bed. Mike told himself not to move, to just stay snug in bed with Jay for as long as he could and leave the unknown alone, but he had to take a leak. He extracted himself as carefully as he could from Jay’s slackened grip on him and crept toward the bathroom, grabbing his phone from the bedside table to use as a flashlight rather than putting on any lights that might wake Jay. 

On his way back to the bed he hesitated and turned toward the closet, his hand shaking as he held his phone up for illumination. He checked back over his shoulder to make sure Jay was still fast asleep. He hadn’t moved at all, was still curled toward the spot where Mike had been sleeping. Mike stared at Jay with in the light from the phone’s screen for a moment, his eyes having adjusted enough that the streetlight glow from the edges of the closed curtains provided a little illumination, too. 

You’re too good to be true, Mike thought before he turned away from Jay, toward the closet. That’s why I have to check this out.

His heart was pounding as he walked into the closet, as if the doorway was a set of jaws that might close around him and trap him inside. He scanned the rows of Jay’s familiar t-shirts, hung as neatly as suit jackets. Even his jeans were on hangers, folded at the middle. Jay had apparently been traumatized by weekend visits to his father’s dumpy apartment as a kid, after his parents divorced. Any kind of clutter made him itchy and uncomfortable. He would have hated Rich’s Occult Books.

Mike checked back over his shoulder again before lifting his phone toward the back wall of the closet, where the clothes Jay wore least often hung. He moved in closer and saw that the bar these clothes hung from was only bolted to the wall on the left side. The right side wasn’t secured in any way, and when Mike reached up to pull on it, careful and braced for it to make some incriminating sound of alarm, it moved soundlessly away from the wall. 

With the clothes swung away, the outline of the door was right there, just as Mike had remembered it, only not glowing with light from within now. There was a handle, and he knew it would be locked but tried it anyway, his blood roaring in his ears. The handle didn’t budge. Mike thought of Jay’s key ring, hanging out in the apartment’s foyer by the front door. He wasn’t exactly planning to go and fetch it, just thinking about it, frozen in indecision and then in terror when he heard footsteps behind him. 

“The fuck are you doing?”

Jay sounded alarmingly awake, and he looked like a vengeful wraith, framed in the closet doorway and glowing with pale menace in the faint light from Mike’s phone screen when Mike held it up as if to defend himself against what was about to happen. 

“I--” Mike hadn’t prepared any kind of excuse. He’d not been entirely awake until this moment, he realized, but his heart was slamming and his skin was screaming with sharp goosebumps that raced over his arms like a warning: get out, get out now!

Jay flipped the closet light on, exposing Mike like a prowler. They both squinted at each other in the sudden onslaught of brightness. Jay was scowling, first in what looked like confusion. Then his features settled into the vacant, fake-calm expression that Mike had only ever seen a few times, when Jay was really, really fucking angry. 

“Jay,” Mike said, holding up his other hand, his phone still lifted like he was going to take a video of this, the worst moment in his life. “Look, I’m sorry, I just--” 

“Get the fuck out of there,” Jay said, cold and measured, stepping out of the doorway and pointing to the bedroom. “And put that back where it was.” 

That? Mike was so horrified by his own behavior and terrified of Jay’s reaction that he didn’t even know what Jay was talking about for a moment. He realized Jay meant the clothing rack and hurried to settle it back against the wall, so that the hanging clothes hid the door again. 

“Okay, sorry,” Mike said, turning back to Jay and trying to get a little angry himself. It was his only hope. “But this is weird, man, what the fuck is that door? I just, I was wondering--”

“Get out, I said.” Jay was still pointing to the bedroom, still looking ready to kill in the calmest, creepiest, most decisive way possible. “You fucking asshole. Nothing’s ever enough for you. Just get the fuck out of here.” 

“Enough-- What? It’s not-- It’s not that weird for me to want to know what you have in some secret closet room, Jay. You’ve, we’ve-- I mean, I know I don’t live here and I’m not, like, ever gonna be allowed to, but we have a fucking life together! Okay? Right? I guess you don’t want to admit it--”

“I said get out! I’m not fucking kidding!”

“Just tell me what’s in there! God, what’s the big fucking deal!” 

Jay responded by turning and gathering up Mike’s clothes and shoes from the bedroom floor. He walked out of the bedroom with them in a way that was worrying. Mike hurried after him.

“Jay,” Mike said, glad that he was at least wearing an undershirt and boxers, because he was pretty sure he knew what Jay was about to do. “Hang on, wait, I’m sorry--”

“You’re not sorry, you’re never fucking sorry!” Jay said, turning to shout this at Mike in a way that was at least better than his eerie pretend calm. He had Mike’s clothes balled up against his chest and looked livid, the skeletons that were secured to the walls in the foyer and awaiting their prom costumes flanking him like a posse. 

“I am so!” Mike said, also shouting. “What are you talking about? Why are you like this?”

That was the wrong thing to say. Jay flattened his features again, turned and unlocked the front door.

“What are you doing?” Mike asked. “Jay, hang on a second, fucking talk to me--”

“Talk to you?” Jay sneered at Mike from over his shoulder before opening the door and throwing his clothes and shoes out into the hallway. “Fuck that,” he said when he turned back. “You went snooping through my shit instead of talking to me, but I’m supposed to-- Just get the hell away from me before I say something worse.”

“Like what, Jay?” Mike asked, not budging. “Like _what_?”

“Like I don’t know how you expect anybody to take you seriously when everything’s a fucking game to you.”

“To-- To me? Are you kidding me? Look who’s talking, are you for real? You don’t even try to be a normal person!”

Jay sniffed and stared at Mike in disbelief for a moment before putting his stoic mask back on.

“If that’s what you want, Mike, I don’t know what the fuck you’re doing with me.” 

“Yeah, me either, suddenly.”

Mike walked out. Jay slammed the door behind him. Mike heard him bolting it as he gathered his clothes, and saw a few neighbors quickly shut their doors when he straightened to put them on.

He made it to the elevator before the rage in his chest welled up like a storm cloud gathering moisture, threatening to turn into something else. He wouldn’t let himself think about the fact that they’d never had a real fight before, not like that. Nor would he let himself settle on the idea that it was his fault, even if it was the truth. He had to-- He wasn’t sure what he had to do. He wanted to go home, but his apartment didn’t feel like one the way that Jay’s did, secret doors or not.

It was too late to go anywhere else, so he ended up back at his place, which had never felt so hollow, empty of any semblance of comfort without Jay there with him. He drank bourbon and tried to call Jay, ready to apologize. It would be worse if he didn’t grovel right away, he decided. Jay didn’t answer, and the sound of his chirpy voice on his voicemail recording made Mike’s eyes well up. He realized then that he was too drunk to make any sense, but left a message anyway, shaky voice and all.

“Hey, um. I’m sorry. I’m really fucking sorry, that was fucked up of me to do. I just, uh. I guess I’m kinda fucked up about a bunch of shit lately, and it’s making me insane. Jay, just. I don’t know. It’s just been so long, me and you, whatever we are, and I want everything you have. I know I don’t deserve it, no matter how long we’ve been together, but I fucking want it, okay? And you make me feel like a freak for wanting to, just. Like wrap around you and tie it all off with a bow. So I tried to turn it around on you, like-- I shouldn’t have said that, I don’t want someone normal, fuck. I don’t want anyone but you. I’ll, uh. I’ll call you tomorrow, I’m drunk. I’m sorry.”

Mike passed out soon afterward and woke up late the next morning, feeling awful. He wasn’t even hungover, just heartsick, and when he tried to call Jay he got the voicemail again. 

It was Sunday, and Mike told himself not to panic, that Jay probably just needed a day to cool down before they hashed it all out at work on Monday morning and had soppy sex in the back room afterward. He told himself around a hundred times that this was certainly what would happen, never quite able to believe it. 

Around ten o’clock that night, after some beers, he sent Jay a text message, unable to resist:

_Hey, you ok?_

No response. He woke up five times in the night and groped desperately for his phone, but still had nothing from Jay.

Mike was a mess on his way to work Monday morning, feeling like he’d puke. He almost got in a car accident twice, though the shop was only a ten minute drive from his place. His heart began its descent down a bottomless well when he crashed into the shop and saw Jay wasn’t there yet. 

Mike checked his phone: nothing. He paced around the shop, trying to remember the last time he’d made it in to work before Jay. He couldn’t. Finally he sat down at the shop’s computer and checked their shared work email.

He had a new email from some faceless suit at Lightning Fast corporate, a woman he’d never met who passed for their HR department. The subject line was UNDERSTAFFED THIS WEEK. 

_Greetings REPAIR ASSOCIATE - MICHAEL, _

_You will be understaffed this week as REPAIR ASSOCIATE - JAY has taken sick leave and does not expect to be back until the following week. If you have need of it please contact me and I can arrange for a temp._

_Regards,  
Beth_

Mike stared at the computer for a long time before grabbing his cell and calling Jay again. He cursed and punched the countertop when Jay didn’t answer.

“Are you actually sick?” Mike asked, barking this at Jay’s voicemail in a tone that was probably unwise. “Jay, what the fuck. I’m sorry, okay? I really am, it’s not some fucking-- Look, I don’t know what the fuck is going on. If you even give a shit about me, maybe call me and tell me you’re okay. Thanks a ton. Bye.”

It enraged him that Jay could go cold turkey like this, like he could have always taken or left Mike, like a week without him was even survivable. Mike wasn’t going to stand for this childish bullshit. He’d go over to Jay’s apartment with soup after work, he decided. He’d get on his goddamn knees, whatever Jay needed. Mike was still angry, but he’d accepted that this was all his fault. He’d violated some boundary that Jay had never expressly laid out but which should have been clear. He’d known he was doing wrong when he went in that closet.

Along with hot soup from the deli across the street, Mike picked up a six pack of pumpkin beers. He was jumpy on the way up to Jay’s apartment, feeling like the cops were going to spring out and arrest him, like maybe in addition to the sick week stunt Jay had also taken out a restraining order for good measure. He was methodical and ruthless like that, sometimes. And Mike still didn’t know what the fuck he was hiding behind that door.

He knocked on Jay’s door for ten minutes and got several looks from neighbors who poked their heads out to scowl at him. The soup got cold. Mike left before getting down on his knees and wailing for Jay to please let him in, pretty sure that would actually get him arrested. 

At home, he put the soup in the fridge and slammed three pumpkin beers before texting Jay.

_Came by your place, I guess you’re either ignoring me or not really sick and went out._

_Jay, please._

_Tell me how to fix this I’ll do anything._

He got no response and didn’t know what to do. When he finally got a text message around nine o’clock that night he knocked over a fifth pumpkin beer in his scramble to read it.

It wasn’t from Jay. It was from the oldest of Jay’s two sisters. 

_Jay has the flu and he’s staying with me._

Mike could hear the coldness in the words and didn’t dare call her. He was afraid of sunny people like Jay and his sisters when they were mad. It was unnatural to see them in that state, too disturbing.

He did send a text back, pretending everything was okay just in case this was true, or all that Jay had told her about the situation.

_That sucks, right before Halloween! Hope he’ll still be able to have his party this weekend._

She didn’t respond.


	3. Chapter 3

Another Jayless day dawned, and Mike already felt desperate. He thought about going over to Jay’s sister’s place, though he could only vaguely remember which building they’d dropped her off at after apple picking and didn’t know what her apartment number was. I’ve ruined everything, he thought, every time he miserably locked eyes with himself in a reflective surface. I had everything I needed and I wanted more and I wrecked it. 

Business was slow at the shop as usual. Mike felt like he’d go out of his mind by mid-afternoon Tuesday. He looked at his phone constantly, expecting nothing and getting exactly that. The weather remained as grey and wet as it had been on the night when he went out to get cheese curds for Jay. Staring listlessly at the windows of the shop all day long, he hated himself for even internally grousing about the cheese curd errand. Now Mike would sell large chunks of his soul just to get a rude text from Jay demanding that Mike bring him cheese curds at once. And Jay had asked so sweetly, in reality, in what now felt like the very distant past, and had thanked Mike by kissing him when he’d returned with them. 

By Wednesday Mike was composing handwritten love letters, not sure what he planned to do with them. On Thursday after work, everything inside him wrung out with nonstop anxiety and his mind frayed with lack of sleep, he found himself standing outside of Rich’s Occult Books. 

Even in the state he was in, he was hesitant to admit to himself that he was this desperate for company, three twenty dollar bills recently withdrawn from the ATM in his wallet. It was raining pretty hard and freezing outside, so he sighed and gave in to his dignity’s defeat, pushing inside the shop.

The interior smelled like it had that night when he came after hours, like dusty antiques and old leather books. Mike spotted the tea kettle steaming on the front counter and craned his neck, peering between the cramped, towering bookshelves at the back of the shop and trying to find Rich.

“Hello?” he called. “Anybody home?”

“Heh?” Rich said, poking his head out from a back room that was cordoned off with strings of hanging red beads. “Oh, it’s you. Everything all right with your, uh. Situation?”

“No. It’s terrible.” 

“Uh-oh. Hang on, I’ll be right out. Help yourself to some tea!”

Fuck your tea, Mike wanted to say, though he had no reason to be mean to Rich. He just resented that he’d sunk this low.

Rich emerged a few minutes later. Mike was sitting miserably on his old lady-scented sofa, hugging a cross-stitched pillow against his chest. Rich got himself some tea and came over to the armchair, lowering himself into it with a grunt.

“So,” he said. “What’s going on?”

“Jay is-- He’s-- I tried to get into his lair.”

“Oh, fuck. And?”

“I couldn’t get in, it was locked. He caught me and threw me out, and now he’s-- He won’t talk to me. Rich. He’s gone, like. I fucked it all up.” 

Mike held the pillow over his face, though he wasn’t crying, exactly. He just wanted to die.

“Shit,” Rich said. “So you still don’t know what was in that room?”

“Does it fucking matter anymore?” Mike asked, lowering the pillow and glowering. “I lost everything! I don’t care if he’s fucking Satan himself! That would be hot, actually! I just need him back, like. Do you sell love potions? ‘Cause he don’t love me no more. All it took was me trying to get into his secret room. It was like some evil test he set up for me. And I failed, fucking miserably.”

“Hmm.” Rich took a loud sip from his tea. “Love potion doesn’t exist, by the way.” 

“No shit, I wasn’t being serious. Give me some fucking advice, man! He’s not coming into work, not answering my calls, it’s like he’s totally disappeared.” 

“Well-- What’d he say when he caught you? Was he like, ‘you can’t ever go in there, that’s my secret room?’ Or what?”

“He said nothing is ever enough for me. Whatever the fuck that means.” Mike knew what it meant, actually. He’d had so much, and he’d thrown it away, and for what? Jay could have a stack of dead bodies in that room and Mike would find some way to justify it so they could still be together. Didn’t Jay know that??

“You don’t look well,” Rich said, giving Mike a long stare that was some combination of pity and disgust. 

“Yeah, no shit. I can’t sleep. Can barely eat. You don’t understand. This person has been with me practically every day of my life since I was twenty-one. Now he’s cut off my supply-- It’s like I’m the fucking incubus, and I can’t survive without, you know. Absorbing his life force.” 

Rich sighed and put his tea cup aside.

“What?” Mike asked when Rich gave him another long look of concern. “Do you think-- You think he’s really sick? Without me, like. He called in sick to work, and what if it’s true? What if he actually needs me to survive for some reason, but he’s being stubborn? Jay would die to be proven right, he would fucking deny himself my life force just to make me suffer--”

“Whoa, whoa, okay.” Rich held up his hands. “Look, man. I gotta level with you. You’re freaking me out.” 

“I’m-- What? Why?”

“Because--” Rich groaned. “I’m probably gonna regret this, but on the other hand, I really don’t want to be responsible for your psychotic break, sooo. I don’t actually believe in any of this stuff,” he said, leaning toward Mike and lowering his voice a little, as if the taxidermied bats might overhear. “I’m just trying to make a buck. Most people just want to have their superstitious bullshit confirmed. I collect some cash in the meantime, everybody goes away happy. But this is-- Uhh, I’m feelin’ kinda bad, here. I didn’t mean to, like, push you over the edge.”

Mike just stared at him, still holding the pillow. 

“What,” he said, when he could speak again.

Rich shrugged. “I inherited this shop from my crazy uncle,” he said. “And it does a surprisingly good business, plus I got the consultation gig on the side. I had to do something when I got disbarred. Which was total bullshit, by the way. That judge had it out for me--”

“You don’t believe in this stuff,” Mike said, repeating this slowly. “None of it.”

“No! I’m a fucking atheist, this crap is just a business venture. You want some real advice? Tell this guy he’s driving you nuts with his secretive bullshit and that if he wants to stay with you, he’s gotta make an attempt to live with you, because that’s what you want out of the relationship and if he can’t give it to you you’re gonna go find it with someone else. Grow a fuckin’ backbone already.” 

Mike stood slowly, not sure if he wanted to beat the crap out of Rich or fall at his feet and weep.

“You want to go get a drink with me?” Mike asked, still desperate not to be alone and to keep talking about this, even if Rich’s advice was totally wrong.

“I don’t drink,” Rich said. 

“What-- ‘Cause vengeful spirits will eat you if you let your guard down? I thought--”

“No, no, I just don’t like it. But sure, I’ll come to the bar with you. I’ll get a soda.” 

They stayed out at the bar together for a long time. Mike got drunk, talked about Jay nonstop and cried twice, but subtly enough that he hoped Rich wouldn’t notice. Rich didn’t comment on it, anyway, and was still a pretty good listener, though now that he wasn’t trying to court Mike as a sucker client for his paranormal investigation business he was far more blunt, verging on rude.

Mike kind of appreciated that. He figured he deserved it. 

“I mean, you got two alternatives,” Rich said when Mike had his elbow on the bar, chin in his hand. “One, there’s something truly fucked up in that room and your whole view of this guy is going to change if you find out what it is. Two, it’s some stupid shit and he’s being unreasonable for keeping it from you, especially if he trusts you with, ehh, you know, fucking him and so forth. Either way, it’s on him. That’s why he’s being all cagey and avoiding you. He knows he’s at least partly in the wrong, and he doesn’t want to admit it.”

“So what do I do now?” Mike asked, mumbling this against his palm.

“Confront the little bastard. You say his Halloween party is this Saturday, and it’s a huge deal for him? No way he’s gonna cancel it or change the venue this late, and that means he can’t hide from you. Show up right before the party is supposed to start and make him talk to you. That’s what I’d do.” 

“You married?” Mike asked. 

“Yes, and we’ve been together since we were fifteen, so don’t give me that skeptical look.”

“I wasn’t,” Mike said, though he’d expected the answer to be no.

Getting through Friday with this Halloween party-crashing plan in mind was excruciating. Mike tried to distract himself by attempting to come up with the perfect Halloween costume to show up to Jay’s apartment in, something that would both disarm and charm him. It needed to say both: look, Jay, I’m done putting up with your shit, and oh god please don’t leave me, I’ll die, in equal measure.

Ultimately he settled on Michael Myers, because he already had some scummy-looking old coveralls on hand and the right build for the character, also because Jay loved Michael Myers. Another benefit: Mike could either wear or remove the mask as appropriate, depending on whether or not Jay was willing to look at his face when he got there. Also, the guy’s name was Michael. It would be cute, he hoped.

By Saturday morning his stomach was in perpetual knots. He’d had nightmares that he showed up at the apartment and not only found that no Halloween party was taking place, the rooms had been cleared out and Jay was long gone, all traces of him scraped away. He showered and paced around his apartment, unable to occupy his mind with anything but all the many ways this could go wrong. Jay’s party usually started at 8, and Mike had told himself he needed to wait till 7:30 to insure that Jay’s door would be open for the first guests, but ultimately he only made it to 6:00, hoping that if he put the Michael mask on, Jay would look through the peep hole and open the door, whereas if he looked and saw Mike’s actual face, Jay might leave him out there. Mike still had his key to Jay’s place, but using it to break in seemed like the wrong move at this juncture. Better to show up in a creepy serial killer costume hours ahead of the party and hope that won Jay over.

Mike felt like his internal organs had been put through a deli slicer by the time he was ascending to the second floor in the creepy old elevator at Jay’s building. He slipped the Michael Myers mask on and wondered if he should brandish the big fake knife he had in the pocket of the coveralls. Would Jay like that? He felt like he barely knew who the fuck Jay was anymore, because of that secret room and after spending an entire week with no word from him. 

Jay’s door was closed, and Mike could faintly hear some synthwave music coming from behind it. He could also smell baked apples. Jay would be listening to pre-party music to get himself pumped while cooking, probably while drinking a pumpkin beer. Mike’s knees were shaking. If Jay slammed the door in his face he would literally die. All of Rich’s advice about being firm about what he wanted and not groveling had already deserted him. He was ready to get on his knees and cry openly, from behind the Michael Myers mask if necessary. 

Mike knocked, creeped out by the sound of his own heavy breathing within the mask. 

“It’s unlocked!” Jay called. “C’mon in!”

So Jay was expecting someone else before the party. Mike groaned and looked behind him, afraid he’d see a dashing young man who Jay had already replaced him with approaching in an amazingly accurate Snake Plissken costume. Nobody was there, but Mike felt like he’d fucked this up already. He grabbed for the doorknob anyway, and threw the door open probably too hard. 

He felt like an idiot when Jay glanced up at him from the kitchen, where he was pouring what looked like caramel over some popcorn. Mike couldn’t make himself move, speak, or take off the mask. 

“Oh, god, Mike,” Jay said, turning back to his caramel corn with a frown. “What the fuck.”

“You recognized me?” Mike said, heartened by this. He pulled off the mask and let it sit atop his head, still standing in the doorway. 

“Uh, yeah? Were you trying to scare me? Seriously?”

“No! Just. I don’t know what I’m doing. Jay. Jay! What the fuck, I-- Can I come in?”

“Yes, come help me with this. Are your hands clean?”

“I don’t know,” Mike said, feeling like his chest was going to burst. 

“Jesus. Get over here, wash your hands, and help me make popcorn balls.” 

“Jay.” Mike kicked the door shut behind him and took the Michael mask off entirely, dropping it onto Jay’s couch on the way toward the kitchen. The place was done up with elaborate skeleton prom atmosphere, but Mike couldn’t take his eyes off Jay long enough to notice the details of any of it. All he could think about was the rib-cracking urgency to run to Jay and pull him into his arms. “What is happening?” Mike asked when he was standing between the kitchen and living room, where just a week ago he had fucked Jay while he bobbed for apples. It seemed impossibly idyllic already.

“Popcorn balls are happening,” Jay said, still avoiding Mike’s eyes while he spread caramel over the kernels with a little spatula. 

He looked up at Mike with a sigh, and Mike jumped backward, eyes wide, when he got a good look at Jay’s face. Jay looked like he’d been beaten up and then gnawed on by a zombie. He had dark circles under his eyes and a nasty, blackened bruise covering his right cheek, blood crusted at the corner of his lips.

“It’s makeup,” Jay said, when Mike ran into the kitchen and grabbed Jay’s shoulders, panicked. “For-- It’s my costume, calm down!”

“You-- Your costume?” Mike touched Jay’s unbruised cheek, his hand trembling. He could feel a fine powder on Jay’s skin, grayish white when it came off on Mike’s fingertips.

“Don’t!” Jay smacked him away. “You’re fucking it up.”

“The hell is your costume?” Mike asked, looking down at Jay’s shirt, which had a Star Wars logo on it. He was wearing jeans and socks with pumpkins on them. 

“Here,” Jay said, wiping his hands on a dish rag. “I’ll show you.” 

He walked over to his dining room table, which was elaborately outfitted with a black tablecloth covered in a white cobwebby fabric, mini skeleton lights ringing the still-empty punch bowl, which was surrounded by mini cauldron cups. Also on the table was a pair of lens-less glasses with thick black rims and a slip-on bowtie with tiny Marvel superheroes on it. Jay pulled the bowtie on over his head, patted at his hair to make sure it was still in place, then put the glasses on and blinked at Mike from behind them. 

“I’m a dead podcaster,” he said. 

“What is happening,” Mike asked again.

“Halloween, you asshole. Don’t ruin it for me.” 

“Are we-- I mean-- With us, Jay. Where the fuck have you been? Were you really sick?”

“What do you think? Help me make popcorn balls before the caramel cools off too much. If you’re useful maybe I’ll answer your questions.” 

Of course Jay was already trying to pretend-- What? That nothing was wrong? That none of it had happened? Mike was too grateful to even be allowed in his place again to complain. He wanted to lean over and sniff Jay’s neck like a fucking animal, felt like he might die if he didn’t. Instead, as he was on probation already, he did as Jay asked and washed his hands.

“Place looks great,” Mike said, muttering this cautiously when he was standing beside Jay, both of them silently making popcorn balls. 

“Thanks,” Jay said. “I told my sister to come over and help me finish decorating. I thought you were her.”

“Well. I’m not.”

Jay snorted and shook his head. Mike looked over at him, desperate. Jay kept his eyes on the popcorn balls.

“I don’t have time to have a big thing with you right now,” Jay said. “Is what I mean.” 

“I don’t need a big thing. I just wanted to be with you. I’ve been a fucking wreck--”

“Mike, stop. We can talk later.” 

Mike thought of protesting: you’re always saying that. You’ve been saying that for twenty years!

“That makeup looks really good,” he said instead. “You do it yourself?”

“Yes. Thanks. I should have finished cooking first, but the silicon stuff on the face wound takes a while to set.”

“How, uh. How’ve you been?” Mike gave him a desperate look again after asking.

Jay rolled his eyes. 

“Not great, Mike.” 

“Jesus, I’m so sorry, can I just--”

“If I show you that room will you shut the fuck up and do as I say for the rest of the night?”

Jay finally met Mike’s gaze after saying this, eyes blazing. He was still wearing the glasses, the bowtie. Mike was ready to rip out his heart and float it in the punchbowl as a Halloween decoration if that was what Jay wanted. It dawned on him slowly that Jay had just offered to show him that secret room. In the midst of his the rest of his angst, Mike had actually, finally managed to forget it existed. 

“You don’t have to show me anything,” Mike said, suddenly sure he didn’t want to see whatever was in there. “I’ll do whatever you want.” 

He imagined Rich shaking his head at this pathetic display, but he didn’t care. Rich didn’t know Jay. He didn’t know the power Jay had over Mike, didn’t believe in such things.

Mike believed. He could feel it when Jay looked up at him, studying his face. Seeing Jay with the beaten-up makeup was making Mike want to kill whoever had hurt him, his logical mind lagging behind this instinct. 

“No, you can see,” Jay said, his voice a little softer. His eyes had softened, too, and it occurred to Mike that he might have chosen a costume that featured dark, heavy bags under his eyes because he hadn’t been sleeping and they were there anyway. “Follow me,” Jay said, turning away when Mike tried to move in for a kiss. “You can’t kiss me,” he said. “It’ll mess up the fake blood.”

“Right,” Mike said, miserably. His heart was beating fast at the thought of that room. What the fuck was he about to see? How was it possible that he so deeply no longer cared what was in there, as long as he got to stay at Jay’s party and maybe kiss him later, when the makeup came off?

Mike trailed Jay through the bedroom, his heart in his throat. Jay flipped the light on in his closet and moved the clothing rack on the back wall out of the way, revealing the hidden door. It looked alarmingly normal with the lights on overhead and during the daytime, just a regular-sized door that happened to be at the back of a closet wall. Jay sighed before turning to Mike. 

“This room is the whole reason I bought this apartment,” he said.

“Bought?” Mike said, thrown by that. “I assumed you were renting.”

“Yeah, well, I’m not. I inherited money from my grandpa, years ago.”

“I didn’t know that.” 

“Don’t take this the wrong way, but back then I thought you might try to steal it from me.”

“That’s-- Fair.”

“So. Anyway.” Jay glanced at the door. “This place actually has two bedrooms. It was a weird renovation, because it’s a historic building and they couldn’t tear down certain walls. So the walk-in closet had to go between the two rooms. And I liked-- I liked the idea of having, like-- Ugh. Here, I’ll just. Show you.”

Jay pulled his keys out of his pocket and unlocked the door while Mike stood watching in tense silence. He had no idea what to expect. The door opened into a dark, apparently windowless room that smelled of wood shavings. Jay flipped on a light switch inside, and Mike blinked a few times, trying to make sense of what he was seeing.

“It’s-- a video store?” Mike said, craning his neck and kind of afraid to walk inside. It was like looking into another dimension that Jay’s apartment opened into, some kind of stuck in time retail space. 

“Not really,” Jay said, though that was exactly what it looked like: a video rental store from the late 80s or early 90s, with VHS tapes lined up neatly on rows of five-foot tall shelves, posters advertising old movies on the walls and a number of full-sized standee figures of movie characters scattered around the room. Mike spotted a Freddy Krueger one leering from the corner. There was a Kurt Russell one with his shirt hanging open around his bare muscled chest-- Captain Ron, Mike supposed. On the wall opposite the video shelves there were a number of tall bookcases housing what looked like a collection of magazines, and in the corner just to the left of the door was a carpentry workbench with a circular saw and a small pile of lumber pieces, a half-assembled shelf pushed against the wall nearby. 

“Um,” Mike said. “Okay. What?”

“This is my sanctuary,” Jay said. He was blushing, standing in the middle of the room and looking adorably timid in his podcaster costume. “I just-- I know it’s really dorky, and weird, but it’s, like, my private hobby. You know I like decorating shit and crafty stuff, and-- I have this big collection of old VHS tapes, and like every issue of Fangoria, almost, and I just. I wanted a place to display it, and, um. It’s too weird to, like, show to people, and I like being in here and knowing it’s my secret. I watch movies in here.” He pointed at the back left corner, where there was a nook with an old TV and VCR, also a loveseat. “And I read old magazines, and. I dunno. It’s comforting. I know I’m weird!” he added, sort of shouting this at Mike when Mike just stared at him, dumbfounded. “I know that, and it’s nobody’s business exactly how weird I am. Except for yours, because I need you to be weird with me so I can get off. But this isn’t a sex thing, this is just _my_ thing, for me, by myself, and. Well. Now you know. So go ahead and make fun of me.”

“That’s why you felt like you couldn’t show me this stuff?” Mike said, boggling. “Because you were afraid I’d make fun of you for it?”

“No! Well, that’s part of it, but. I dunno. It was comforting to me, like. That there was one thing even you didn’t know about me. I don’t like be subsumed into other people, okay? But you did it anyway, you’re so _pushy_, and you just-- You have to get your hands all over everything. So, here you go. Here’s the last thing you didn’t know about me.”

Mike walked into the room and peered at the movies on the shelves. He wasn’t sure if he was relieved yet. He was fucking confused. 

“It’s just a hobby,” Jay said, looking panicked when Mike turned to him. “If there’s a name for it, I don’t know what it is. It’s like a life-sized diorama. It’s not that weird! But I knew, if I showed it to anyone and tried to explain, they’d look at me exactly like you are right now.”

“No, I’m just--” Mike shook his head and walked over to one of the shelves. Jay had labeled each of them with what looked like vintage signs from old video stores: Horror, Comedy, Drama. “I’m not trying to subsume you,” Mike muttered, picking up a tattered old copy of the Garbage Pail Kids movie.

“Yeah, you are,” Jay said. “Or anyway, you’re doing it. You’ve done it. Whether you tried to or not.”

“Jay--”

“Because I fucking hated my life this past week,” Jay said, his voice wavering in a way that made Mike put the movie down and turn to him, his heart lurching toward that shake in Jay’s voice. 

“Me too,” Mike said, not sure if he should actually approach him yet. Jay had the energy of a skittish animal who’d been cornered in his lair. “You could have just told me to come to you, you didn’t have to--”

“No, I had to stay away. A whole week. It was an experiment, Mike. And it failed. I can’t, like. Enjoy anything. Without you, anymore. So.”

“I’m-- Sorry?” Mike said, not sure if he was being broken up with or if this was the opposite of that. 

“You better be.” Jay turned away from him and went over to one of the bookcases loaded with old magazines. He put his hands on one of the shelves and stood there touching the spines of his neatly ordered volumes, shoulders trembling.

Mike approached him cautiously, feeling like Jay was extra vulnerable inside this space, maybe just because Mike was suddenly in it with him. Mike had never seen Jay cry, outside of overwhelmed sex tears. Was that what was happening? Jay would ruin his dead guy makeup and blame Mike, if so.

“Sorry I ruined your life,” Mike said, standing close behind him but not daring to touch him yet. 

“Yeah,” Jay said, his voice broken and small. He sniffled and shrugged. “It’s okay, though.” 

“Is it? What-- What are you afraid of? That I’ll leave you? I never will, c’mon. You know that.”

“You could die.”

Mike snorted, as if that was impossible or something. Jay turned to glare at him. Mike tried to remember if his eyes had looked red-rimmed like that already, because of the makeup.

“Sorry,” Mike said. He settled his hands on Jay’s shoulders, gently. “Just, um. Are you saying you’re afraid to really let someone into your life because humans aren’t immortal?”

“Well. It sounds stupid when you say it like that. But it’s fucking logical. If you _can_ be happy alone, you should be. It’s smarter.” 

“Jay. You’ve been with me in one way or another since you moved out of your mother’s house. You’ve literally never lived this philosophy.” 

“Yes, I have! I have-- Boundaries. Anyway, I did. Tried to. Me and you were just friends, for a long time! And then we were also fucking, and. I don’t know. It’s a slippery slope.”

Jay looked down at Mike’s chest and then up into his face again. Mike wanted to wipe the makeup that was making him look so hurt away. He brought his face down close to Jay’s, just short of kissing him. Jay was breathing a little hard, in huffs through his nose. 

“I think I understand,” Mike said. 

“You do?”

“Yes. You’re an immortal imp who fell in love with a pathetic human.” 

Jay rolled his eyes. He also smiled a little. 

“Sucks for you,” Mike said. “I wish I, uh. Wish I could be good enough, on your level.” 

“Oh, fuck, that’s not what I mean at all!” 

Jay grabbed Mike’s arms and leaned up to kiss him, then remembered his makeup and sank back down onto his heels before their lips could properly touch. He squeezed Mike’s arms and gave him such a pitifully broken-open look that it was physically painful for Mike to not kiss him. 

“I just want-- I don’t know what I want,” Jay said. “I sleep so much better when you’re here. Or when I’m at your place. And even if I can’t sleep, when I’m up in the middle of the night I’m always glad you’re there, too. I didn’t want to get addicted to it, just in case. But I am.” 

Mike was at a loss for how to respond to this. Did Jay really need him to explain how human relationships worked? That having something meant having something to lose? Was he actually from some twisted ancient wood, adopted by a human family because he’d taken a human form, and now, in love with a human, didn’t know what the fuck to do with himself? 

They heard someone knocking on the front door of Jay’s apartment and Jay startled, eyes wide, as if he was about to be caught with his porn collection. He grabbed Mike’s arm and pulled him out of the video store room, snapping the light off on the way out. 

“Don’t tell my sister about this stuff,” Jay said as he locked it up again.

“Wasn’t gonna,” Mike said, instead of: why the fuck not? He was still confused about why this had to be a big secret, except that Jay got off on keeping certain things hoarded up inside himself. He still wouldn’t tell Mike if he’d been a virgin or not the first time they fucked. He said it was none of Mike’s business. Mike figured he was either too embarrassed to admit that he’d only ever slept with Mike or that he’d had some shitty experiences in college that he didn’t want to talk about, so he left it alone. It was true that Mike was pushy about everything else. He’d pushed all the way into Jay’s last stronghold, where he kept his bare-chested Kurt Russell standee and what had looked like about a thousand neatly organized old copies of _Entertainment Weekly_, for some reason. Mike wondered if he’d ever be allowed in there again. He wasn’t even sure where they’d left things before they rushed out. 

Jay’s sister didn’t look surprised to see Mike there. Jay was flustered, giving them both instructions on last minute party preparations. While helping him out, Mike noted the skeleton prom details, which were unsurprisingly impressive. The living room skeletons had a humorous, festive look to them, with dingy old party dresses and bow ties, while the ones perched in corners in the bedroom and bathroom were lit so they looked scary and menacing, in various stages of distress that alluded to how they were killed. Jay flicked on the professional grade smoke machine that was hidden behind his living room couch to complete the scene, and stood there beaming as he beheld it. 

“Ain’t no party like a skeleton party,” Mike said, hoping to get a laugh out of him.

“What are you supposed to be?” Jay’s sister asked when Jay ignored this comment, still basking in the full effect of his creation. His sister gestured to Mike’s costume. “A mechanic?”

“My mask is over there,” Mike said, pointing to the Michael Myers one he’d left on the couch. 

“Oh,” she said, looking disappointed. “You guys should have done matching costumes.” 

“There’s still time for you to dress up as Laurie Strode, Jay,” Mike said.

That got a laugh out of him, at least.

Jay was practically a professional at throwing this party, and everything went well as usual. By nine o’clock his apartment was jam-packed, even people who normally didn’t spend much time hanging out with Jay’s crowd showing up for the spectacle. Jay was like the Gatsby of the Milwaukee Halloween revelry scene. Mike had always found it charming that he loved throwing elaborate parties, considering he shared a first name with the character who most famously did. On one of the years when Jay was in insanely good shape he had dressed as Gatsby for the party, post-pool shooting. Suddenly brave and cocky as fuck, he wore black swim trunks and a towel around his shoulders all night long, with a bloody fake gunshot wound on his bare chest and back. Mike had fucked him in the bathroom halfway through that party, then again afterward. 

“Nobody gets my costume,” Jay complained to Mike around midnight, when the party had thinned out a little and most of the people who remained were gathered together watching the movies Jay had playing in the living room. Jay was starting to put food away in the kitchen. Mike was helping. He’d hovered at Jay’s side all night long, and Jay hadn’t complained. 

“Well, I get it,” Mike said. “Maybe because only I know and understand your deep-seated hatred of podcasts.” 

“Maybe.”

“When can we kick all these assholes out, anyway? After that movie ends?”

“Normally I’d let everybody stay longer,” Jay said. He was standing at the sink and trying to scrape some caramel goo off a pumpkin-shaped serving platter. “But, yeah. I’ll get rid of them in a sec. It’s been a long week and I need to get laid.” 

“Oh. By me?”

“Yes, Mike. By you.”

“Cool. Just checking.”

The movie ended half an hour later. Mike had been drinking beers all night but felt startlingly sober as he watched Jay say goodnight to the last of his guests. Mike wasn’t sure what would become of him, alone in Jay’s unknowable clutches. He felt more afraid of Jay than he had when he’d been half-convinced Jay was an actual incubus creature and not just a human who was determined to function like one. 

“Jesus, this stuff is itchy,” Jay said, peeling the blackened bruise makeup off his face as he walked from the bolted front door.

Mike’s stomach pitched. It was a grisly image. Jay looked amused when he saw Mike’s expression. 

“Come on,” he said, taking Mike’s arm. “You can watch me wash it off.”

Mike leaned in Jay’s bathroom doorway and watched him scrub at his face with some special silicon-removing soap. Jay rubbed at his cheeks vigorously with a washcloth, then scrubbed again with his normal face cleanser. He was all raw and pink when he was finished, himself again. 

“I can’t enjoy anything without you either,” Mike said when Jay turned from the sink to give him a sheepish, uncertain look. “For the record.”

“Good,” Jay said.

Mike grinned. “Good?”

“Yeah. That makes us even, at least. I am so goddamn tired, I haven’t slept--” Jay cut himself off there and pulled his Star Wars t-shirt off, balled it up and threw it on the bathroom counter. “If I just lie on my back, will you do all the work?”

“All the--Fucking you, that work?”

“Yep.” 

“You know I will.” Mike crossed the bathroom and loomed over Jay, staring down into his upturned face and just short of touching him. Jay smelled like soap and pumpkin beer, cinnamon. “Why you gotta doubt a sure thing,” Mike asked, putting his hands on Jay’s waist. 

Jay shifted closer, so his flattish stomach rested against Mike’s not-flat one. He put his hands on Mike’s chest and slowly slid them up to his shoulders.

“Honestly?” Jay said, lifting his face to meet Mike’s eyes. “I don’t know why I do anything.”

“Me either.” 

“Yeah, I can tell. In your case.”

“Ha ha, okay. C’mere, you little fucker.”

Mike couldn’t remember the last time he’d gone a whole week without kissing Jay. It was like having the life breathed back into him, like Jay was giving him back all the vital energy he’d stolen over the past twenty years in one wet, desperate, open-mouthed kiss. They were both clawing at each other’s clothes on the way to the bed, and Jay whined when he couldn’t find the zipper on Mike’s coveralls, groping at his dick through the crotch in the meantime. 

“Calm yourself,” Mike teased, grabbing Jay’s hand and grinding it against his growing erection. “You want that dick, huh?”

“Fuck yes, just-- Fucking nail me to the mattress, I’m so--”

Jay grunted and stood up on his toes again to kiss Mike, who lifted him off his feet entirely and dropped onto Jay’s bed, yanking Jay down with him. Jay ended up on top of him, which felt good, especially when Jay straddled his chest and huddled over him, still kissing him.

“Thought you might have body parts stacked against the walls in there,” Mike said when Jay pulled back to hold Mike’s face in both hands, catching his breath. 

“In-- There?” Jay glanced at his closet and then back at Mike. He grinned like he was flattered at being suspected of serial killing. 

“You weirdo,” Mike said, slapping Jay’s ass with both palms. “That’s a compliment for you, isn’t it?”

“Well-- Not exactly, but look at me. I don’t get considered dangerous that often.”

“You’re the one who told me you could take me in a fight.”

“Only because you wouldn’t be able to deal any damage. Ya fuckin’ softie. Jesus, if you had found body parts in there, would you even be able to turn me into the cops?”

“Are you fucking kidding me? I wouldn’t even be able to break up with you!”

Jay laughed hard at that and got very red across his already pinked-up cheeks. He tucked his face against Mike’s throat, bouncing on Mike’s chest with giddy laughter while Mike continued drumming on his ass with light slaps of his palms, biting his lip to keep from laughing, too. When Jay lifted his head he was beaming like he knew exactly how fucking true it was, that if Mike had found him red-handed, doing crimes, Mike would have just made excuses for him and helped him clean up the blood splatters.

“But I’d give you a very stern talking to about the value of human life!” Mike said, pointing his finger in Jay’s face. Jay gave Mike’s finger a little lick, like a feral but friendly animal, and rolled over onto his back, pulling Mike on top of him.

They were both tired and it was cold in Jay’s bedroom, the temperature plummeting outside and the windows in his old building drafty as ever, so they ended up under the blankets, fucking slow and sleepy, Mike on top and Jay holding him close, his grip on Mike not allowing him to thrust very hard. Mike didn’t mind. He took his time and kissed Jay’s face all over, so relieved for the effects makeup-free sight of it that he could have stayed like that all night, inside him. 

“Gonna come,” Mike said when he couldn’t hold it back anymore, grinding into Jay and lit up all over from the soft, sated noises he was making. 

“Yeah,” Jay said. His mouth was on Mike’s ear, breath hot and ragged. “I know, _mhm_\-- Let me have it, please. Please, Mike?”

“Whattaya need it for,” Mike asked, not sure Jay would get the joke, if that’s what it was.

“Fuh, for-- To feel-- Ah, Mike, just, _nhn_.”

“Go on and tell me, don’t be shy.”

“Mike--”

“Shit, Jay-- Just-- Give me-- Gimme a reason, want to hear it when I, ah, put it in you--”

“Oh, god, I-- I dunno, I, ah. I like, _nnh_. When you, hah. Put, put your mark all over me, ‘specially there, god, feels so fucking good to get flooded deep and just, fucking. Held down while you make me take it.”

Mike groaned and came, face buried against Jay’s throat. He could feel Jay’s pulse hammering against his cheek, loved it when that was the thing that called him back into his body as he came back down from how supernaturally good it felt to unload inside him.

After he’d recovered a bit more and kissed Jay for a while, he crawled down under the blankets to suck him off. Jay came with a little yelp that made Mike wonder if part of his experiment had been to not even beat off for a week, because he sounded almost pained before he melted into the relief of it, and shot what felt like a record-breaking amount of come down Mike’s throat. 

For a long time after they held each other under the blankets and didn’t talk. Mike laughed under his breath when he noticed that the spooky skeletons in the corners of the bedroom were still mood-lit and had watched them fuck. 

“What,” Jay said, spooned up tight against Mike’s chest and close to sleep, eyes closed. 

“Nothing. You think your friends over there are jealous about what just went down?”

“My fruh-- Oh. The skeletons. Yeah, probably.”

“You always did have an exhibitionist streak, Jay.” 

“Mhm.” 

Jay didn’t sound amused. Mike leaned over to kiss his cheek. 

“Sorry again,” Mike said. 

“About-- What?”

“Trying to look at your secret room. Should have just asked you.”

Jay shrugged one shoulder. “I know I’m a fucking baby,” he said. “Wanting everything just so and not even willing to explain the rules.”

Mike didn’t say anything. That was amazingly accurate, but he didn’t want Jay to get mad at him again.

“You can live here,” Jay said, and he didn’t even get a little bit tense as he said so, spilled boneless in Mike’s arms, eyes still closed. “On a trial basis, though. Don’t break your lease. But we can try it. For a month.”

“Seriously?” 

“Yeah, seriously. I give up trying not to hate it when you leave. But you have to let me go into my sanctuary alone whenever I say so, got it?”

“Oh, god, yeah, of course--”

“I mean, sometimes you can come in. Maybe. We’ll see.”

Jay smirked when Mike kissed him all over his face and tweaked his nipples in gratitude under the blankets. 

Jay was asleep less than a minute later, muscles slack and lips parted. Mike was the one who couldn’t sleep, too excited about this invitation. He groped for his phone when he heard it buzz on the bedside table, and saw a text from Rich of all people.

_How’d it go?_

_Good_, Mike sent back, typing with one hand so he could keep holding Jay against him with his other arm. _Saw the secret room and everything_.

_Whoa!! So? What’s in there?_

Mike typed out ‘harmless nerd shit,’ and then thought better of it. He deleted that and typed something that felt truer to both himself and Jay, and the pact they’d made to always be weird together and never explain it to anyone. 

_Can’t tell you_.

_Oooh_, Rich sent back. _Scandalous! Well, if you need help burying the bodies, I know a guy_.

Mike snorted and sent Rich a middle finger emoji before tossing his phone away and wrapping Jay up tight in both his arms again. 

“Mike?” Jay said, mumbling this in his sleep when Mike settled down against him. 

“Hmm?”

Jay didn’t say anything else, just sighed in what seemed like contentment and bumped his ass back against Mike’s thighs before going under again. Mike had told him a million times that he fit perfectly right there, curled into the shape of Mike’s body like his smaller counterpart. He’d meant it like a taunt, or had tried to seem like that was what it was, anyway: I’m bigger, you need me. It was really a kind of begging for things he couldn’t let himself ask for yet, just another way to plead for Jay to stay right where Mike needed him most.

In the morning they put Baileys in their coffee to celebrate the culmination of another successful Halloween season. Mike drank three mugs full, suddenly loving coffee, and made Jay dance with him at the skeleton prom in nothing but his underwear and that slip-on bowtie. Jay was tipsy enough that he went along with it, red-faced and laughing and calling Mike a dork, swaying his hips against Mike’s like he was under a spell.

**


End file.
